SL projects week 8 (3): Viewer, materials and SSB load test

SL Viewer Updates

Release and Beta Viewers

The release and beta version of the viewer are effectively on a par with one another at this point in time, following the roll-out of SL viewer 3.4.5.270263 on February 14th. There is currently nothing “in” beta at the moment in terms of specific SL projects.

Development Viewer and CHUI

The development viewer and the development version of the CHUI (Communications Hub User Interface) project viewer are also pretty much on a par, and it is anticipated that the CHUI code will be merged-up to viewer development “any minute now”, to use LL’s parlance, although a date has not been indicated. The viewer development code branch is pretty much waiting for this to happen, and CHUI remains in pole position as far as LL’s code merge plans are concerned, so potentially there could be more news on this in week 9.

Project Cocoa

Work is progressing on Project Cocoa within LL. This is a rarely talked-about project to update LL’s Mac support to the Mac OSX Cocoa API specifically for OSX 10.8 support, and remove dependencies on old Mac APIs which are not well-supported any more. The overall goal of this project, as commented on by Widely Linden is to, “Get people building cleanly with 10.8,” although OSX 10.6 will continue to be supported, although it will no longer be possible to build a Mac viewer using 10.6 once this project has been deployed. Widely also commented that there is a project viewer and source code for this work, which interested parties “should snag.”.

Vivox Update

Work is underway to update the SLvoice plugin to use the latest release of Vivox. This should bring with it a number of benefits including: security updates, stability improvements (although perhaps not improved connection reliability), better echo cancellation and – anecdotally, at least – better voice quality. There is no ETA on when this project will be deployed.

FMODex

Linden Lab continue to work on utilising FMODex as a replacement for FMOD.

Materials Project

There has been significant progress in fixing the known outstanding issues on the project which are standing in the way of a public project viewer and viewer code appearing. Speaking at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday 22nd February, Oz Linden said, “Our list of things which must be fixed before we can hand it out to people is now down to one.” However, there is still no estimated date as to when a project viewer and source code will actually appear Real Soon NowTM, which appears to put them both closer than Pretty SoonTM and Real SoonTM on the LL scale of things :).

Materials processing: with one remaining issue to fix, a project viewer now really should not be that far away. In the meantime the server code is fully deployed to the main grid
Materials processing: with one remaining issue to fix, a project viewer now really should not be that far away. In the meantime the server code is fully deployed to the main grid

As has been reported in my server-side news for the week, the server code for materials is deployed to the whole of the main grid, and so the system will be usable as soon as project viewer surfaces.

Server-side Baking

What is likely to be the first in a number of Server-side Baking load / pile-on tests took place on Thursday February 21st. Results were, at best, mixed, for a variety of reasons.

The test was held in the Sunshine project test regions on Aditi, immediately following the Server Beta User Group meeting. Those participating were asked to use the latest iteration of the official project viewer, which had been set-up for LL to do a certain amount of data logging. Anyone encountering issues was asked to raise a JIRA under the SUN project, listing issues encountered, with the viewer session log attached.

the test was in two parts:

  • Part one: performed on a region still running on a region using the current baking system, this saw people change between three of four outfits so that some baseline data could be obtained at the LL end of things. As this was using the current baking system, the usual baking issues were apparent
  • Part two: performed on a region running the new baking service, this again saw people changing between a number of outfits, this time monitoring and reporting on their own experiences.

Results were, it is fair to say, mixed. They were also not helped by the fact that Aditi itself has significant issues with inventory, etc., which made the test considerably more complicated than perhaps needed to be the case (for example, people were getting “object failed to rez”-style messages and other errors as items could not be fetched from inventory, etc.).

SSB load test: mixed results (image courtesy of Latif K
SSB load test: mixed results (image courtesy of Latif Khalifa

As an overall load test on the service itself, this should have generated some interesting numbers for LL with at least 40 people participating in the test at its peak. Commenting on the test on Friday 22nd February, Nyx Linden said, “A big thank you to everyone who participated in the pile-on yesterday. We got a lot of data out of it, [and] it looks like the majority of the issues were inventory-related, and we’re going to be digging into those. Anecdotal evidence suggests that when the system worked, it worked pretty darn well; but there were some people who had more trouble than others … We are looking into the remaining issues; we’re going to be fixing them as quickly as possible.”

While Nyx indicated that the majority of problems were inventory-related, he also stated that he and his team were still digging into the data to see if the problems were purely related to the known issues with Aditi’s inventory handling, or whether some of the issues are apparent in the inventory system itself, either on the server-side of things or within the viewer itself.

Continue reading “SL projects week 8 (3): Viewer, materials and SSB load test”

SL project news week 7 (1): Server deploys, viewer updates

Server Deployments for Week 7

On Tuesday February 12th, the Main channel (Second Life Server / SLS) received the maint-server package focused on crashes fixes which was  deployed in week 6 to LeTigre – release notes.

On Wednesday February 13th the three RC channels are scheduled to receive the following packages:

  • Bluesteel: retains the materials processing project code  – please see the SL Viewer section below for information regarding the current status of viewer development work for thi project – and should receive the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • Magnum: retains the interest list project code and should receive the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • LeTigre should receive a new maintenance server update to fix miscellaneous crash modes – release notes. This deployment also includes the following:
    • An improvement to the rolling restart notifications so that they appear in an alert format (as with manual region restarts) rather than an easily missed notification. This change will only be apparent in restarts following the code deployment restart (as per JIRA SVC-7759)
    • An avatar banned from a parcel can now select an object located in that parcel if they have ‘Return’ powers over that object (see JIRA SVC-496)
    • Instant messages are now truncated to 1024 bytes to prevent certain types of delivery failure. Currently, the IM database supports larger messages than the delivery system can handle. This change will enforce a limit of 1024 bytes when processing messages coming into the database as well as those being sent out.

As always, a forum thread has been created for discussions / feedback on the deployments.

SL viewer Updates

Beta Viewer

While the current beta release of the 3.4.5 code remains stable, problems are being reported in merging various project code updates with the 3.4.5 code base, some TPV developers are reporting issues attempting to merge the 3.4.5 code into their viewer builds, notably with Linux 64-bit and Windows, although the same issue does not appear to be occurring with Mac OSx.

In the meantime, one more 3.4.5 beta release of the SL viewer is anticipated during week 7.

CHUI

As noted in part 3 of the week 6 report, the CHUI project viewer is now largely on a par with the development viewer, although it has yet to be actually merged with the main viewer-dev code trunk. This is due to happen very soon. In week 6, Oz Linden commented that it is anticipated that CHUI will be the first of the upcoming projects to merge with the beta viewer code, and would then be in for a (quot) “Good long run” in beta. This week, it has been hinted that CHUI could actually have a lengthy run in both the development viewer and the beta viewer as final priorities are sorted out.

Server-side Baking Project Viewer

Problems remain in merging the SSB code with viewers using RLVa, although good progress is being made in addressing them, although they have yet to be merged-up to a TPV which supports RLVa and have a version under development using the SSB code.

In the meantime, the latest updates to the viewer code from the Lab were pushed to the project repositories on Monday 11th February, and a new version of the Sunshine project viewer for Windows emerged on Tuesday February 12th – Sunshine 3.4.5.270231, with Mac and Linux builds to follow.

Materials Viewer

Problems remain with the materials processing viewer-side code. Precise details are not clear, but the latest private (LL and project members only) Windows builds are being reported as being, “Conspicuously more unstable than the Mac builds”, in that they tend to crash when connecting to a materials-enabled server. Investigations into the problems (notably by TPV developers engaged in the project) are ongoing to try to locate the underpinning cause.

Materials processing: viewer issues still being resolved, so no public project viewer as yet
Materials processing: viewer issues still being resolved, so no public project viewer as yet

There are a couple more features to go into the materials viewer as well prior to it reaching a public project viewer status, but these are apparently being held-off until the current server interaction problems are resolved.

Experience Permissions

July saw the launch of the first phase of the Advanced Creation Tools, also referred to as experience tools. Following problems with an initial deployment of the tools in June, which resulted them being exploited as a means of griefing, the “first phase” of the release saw the tools implemented with existing permissions system in place, with the intention of updating the permissions system to allow the tools to be more fully used “in the future”. Since then, it has been something of a waiting game to see if / when the promised new experience permissions would be deployed, and my own last report on the general status of the permissions system being in December 2012.

Questions are still being asked at various LL meetings, he most recent being tabled at the Content Creation User Group on Monday 11th February. In reply, Nyx Linden indicated he would attempt to get an update from Falcon Linden, who is leading this project.

Object Inventory Issues

Some people may have encountered problems when trying to transfer a number of inventory items into a box (prim rezzed in-world) or similar. There are two known issues with this:

  • The first is (non-publicly viewable) JIRA BUG-383: “When HTTP Inventory is disabled, mass selecting a bunch of inventory items and attempting to add to an objects contents will fail”. This will apparently happen if the HTTP inventory setting in a viewer is changed without cache also being cleared
  • The second is (non-publicly viewable) JIRA SEC-1041, which is apparently (according to Kelly Linden) related to “An internal TCP error between sim and dataserver.” The problem manifests with the in-world error-message “Inventory creation on in-world object failed” on trying to transfer a large number of items (e.g. 50+) from inventory into the contents of a prim in one go.

As the JIRA on both of these issues are non-viewable, their status isn’t clear, other than the problems described in them can be reproduced. SEC-1041 is the more serious of the two problems and might result in a crash, although it will not result in physical damage to a person’s inventory.

SL projects news week 6 (3): viewer and CHUI, SSB, materials

SL Beta Viewer and CHUI

As noted in part 2 of this report, a new beta release of the SL viewer was made on February 6th. The crash rates for this version, some 48 hours on from the release, are reported by Oz Linden as being “remarkably low”, with some 1400 users / half-a-million minutes logged against it to date. If this continues through the weekend, the chances are the code will go to a release version of the viewer early in week 7 (week commencing Monday 11th February).

If things go according to plan, there is likely to be one more 3.4.5 beta release prior to a merge taking place with the Communications Hubs User Interface (CHUI) code.

Currently, the CHUI code is now fully merged with the viewer-dev code, although it is slightly out-of-step with the beta code. Once the merge to beta has been made, and with everything else going on with the viewer, it is anticipated that CHUI will have “a nice long run,” as a beta release.

Server-side Baking and Pile-on Test Pre-announcement

Avatar bake fail
SSB: looking to solve avatar bake fail

Nyx Linden and his team continue to work on server-side baking (SBB), both on the server and the viewer side of things. An update to the project viewer and viewer code was made back on January 30th, and Nyx has indicated that another push is due early in week 7.

The major news on this project is that a pile-on test is in the planning stage. While dates and times have yet to be confirmed, this is being targeted for later in February on Aditi, and the Lab is looking to have people running a Server-side baking viewer (e.g. the project viewer or any TPV which has implemented the necessary viewer-side code) attend and help provide a thorough load test for the new code.

The test will require viewers to be enabled for certain types of data logging in order to ensure LL gather the relevant information. Details on what will be required will be passed on to those TPVs which indicate they can participate in the test. For those individuals wishing to help out, but whose preferred viewer has not enabled the SSB code by the time of the test, the LL project viewer will have the necessary logging options already enabled. Further details on the proposed test will be published here as they become available.

In terms of TPV integration, it has been confirmed that the SSB code changes for the viewer impact RLVa. Details of the overall impact is unclear, other than RLVa  is affected in several areas and Kitty Barnett is working to fix issues. However, this does mean that integration of the SSB code has slowed for some TPVs.

Materials Processing and Project Viewer

As previously reported, the server-side code is on the BlueSteel RC channel, and there are no apparent issues with the code which might prevent its wider distribution. There are still some issues to resolve with materials processing, which means that a project viewer may be delayed another week or so.

Some of the problems appear to have been network related. When testing recent versions of the pre-release materials viewer on a materials-enabled region of the Main grid, it was noted that they (quote) “significantly added” to the network load for the test region, impacting performance. These problems required additional investigation in order to resolve, and it is hoped that they have now been “wrestled to the ground”. There were also some reports of a couple of things still to be fixed in the UI, although it appears that, again, these have now been dealt with.

Given this, and while a publicly available project viewer appearing in week 7 is “not out of the question”, the Lab appear to be looking at week 8 (commencing Monday 18th February) as the week in which a materials project viewer will surface. In the meantime, the recommendation remains that TPVs do not pull code from the current materials code repository for integration into their own viewers.

The look of things to come: Materials Processing
The look of things to come: Materials Processing should have a public viewer available in the next two weeks

FMODex

Oz confirmed that the Lab now has FMODex working internally on both Windows and Linux, and passed on thanks to members of the Singularity team for their work in making this possible. The code is to be made available for wider testing by TPVs “Pretty Soon”TM.

As per my last update on the matter, it is unlikely that LL will be able to pre-build the code for TPVs, but the goal is to have something which is not “dramatically different” to how TPVs previously obtained the required code. However, with all that is happening at the moment, it is possible that those TPVs which haven’t already looked to using FMODex may continue “as is” with FMOD until some of the pressure is off in terms of other viewer projects which are rolling forward.

Related Links

Information source: TPV Dev meeting, Friday 8th February, 2013. There is unlikely to be an official audio recording of this meeting due to it being relocated due to ongoing issues with the Hippotropolis region.

SL project news: week 4 (3): viewer, CHUI, SSB, more materials, oh my!

SL Viewer Beta

Issues within the 3.4.5 code have prevented viewer releases progressing through beta, with the code stuck in QA while LL tackled them. However, it appears the majority are now either fixed or on their way to being fixed, and an updated beta viewer should be appearing next week, which should see the beta viewer come pretty close to alignment with code in the development viewer, with the latter only having “a couple” of things not added to the beta branch.

Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI) Project

There have been a rapid series of merges between the CHUI project viewer code and the development viewer recently (as seen in my Viewer Round-up Page and weekly summaries), helping the former to keep pace with the latter, with the most recent CHUI development release (3.4.4.269464) being made on January 25th.

Speaking at the TPV Developer’s Meeting on Friday 25th January, Oz Linden indicated that a formal merge of the CHUI project viewer code with the development viewer code branch “pretty soon” (possibly in the next two weeks, putting it ahead of the server-side baking project). However, according to Nyx Linden, the plan will be to not merge CHUI with the server-side baking project for as long as possible, so that TPVs have the choice of deciding whether they wish to integrate both projects into their own code at the same time or not.

CHUI is viewed as potentially the more problematic implementation for some TPVs to undertake as it involves more widespread changes to the UI, and, and project lead Merov Linden pointed out, the need to refactor a number of areas within the viewer to work with the CHUI elements. As some TPVs have already made substantial changes to the communications floater and other aspects of the communications elements of the UI, there is also a need for these TPVs to work through the code and see how it works with / impacts / breaks / undoes the changes they have made, in order for them to make a proper determination as to which code to adopt / maintain, and which code to ignore / discard.

Avatar Baking (Server-side Baking or SSB)

Work in progressing on all sides of this project, with the various TPVs working on integrating the initial code release from LL into experimental versions of their viewers (with varying degrees of success) and LL working on “bug stomping” and fixes. As commented on in my week 3 project report, there are concerns over the speed of releases for updated code from LL and general visibility of JIRA items.

Nyx Linden was on-hand at the TPV Developer Meeting on the 25th January to provide an update and field questions.

Nyx linden discusses server-side baking at the TPV Developer meeting (stock)
Nyx linden discusses server-side baking at the TPV Developer meeting (stock)

In terms of the server-side code, there have been a number of fixes which should have rolled-out to Aditi on Thursday 24th January, although the status of these had yet to be confirmed at the time of the meeting. Various issues are still to be fixed, such as some avatars being reported with heights which don’t match LL’s computations (particularly very small / petite avatars and very big avatars), which may be down to a mis-match between the way some viewers are calculating avatar height and what the server is anticipating receiving in terms of a value range.

The viewer code has also been receiving a number of updates and fixes, which should be available for use by TPVs and in an updated version of the project viewer in the next day or so. These updates include a required fix for an issue whereby edits make to a wearable item are not saved unless the user also changes something else they are wearing (for example, edits made to a blouse are not saved unless the user swaps the pants they are wearing).

Currently, and so far as I’m aware at the time of writing, Cool VL viewer, Singularity and Radegast all have experimental builds of their viewers / clients which incorporate the code and which are being used purely for testing purposes, with Exodus planning to start merging the code shortly. Niran’s viewer has reported issues with the new code “breaking” RLV/a which (so far) haven’t been reported by other TPVs.

Given the overall pace at which things are progressing on LL’s side, particularly with CHUI and dealing with issues uncovered within SSB itself, it is likely the original eight-week window for TPVs to integrate the SSB will be extended inasmuch as the deployment of SBB to the main grid is now likely to be slightly later than LL may have originally anticipated.

Continue reading “SL project news: week 4 (3): viewer, CHUI, SSB, more materials, oh my!”

SL project news week 2 / 1, 2013: avatar baking, materials processing, CHUI and more

SL Beta Viewer

There have been some rendering issues with the last release of the beta viewer (3.4.4.268497, December 20, 2012) which had caused the Lab a slight headache in that not all tests are giving the same results. However, a further 3.4.4 release is anticipated for either Monday 7th or Tuesday 8th January, 2013, which includes various fixes. Whether these are related to the rendering issues is unclear. However, they have not as yet been merged into the Sunshine Project (Avatar baking – see below).

CHUI – Communications Hub User Interface

As reported over the holiday period, the CHUI project is moving forward, with a further update of the project viewer and several updates to the development version of the viewer, possibly the result of code refactoring work which had been indicated as being required prior to the holidays. However, as of the TPV Developer Meeting of Friday 4th January, 2013, it was unclear as to whether this refactoring work has been completed.

CHUI: TPVs may cherry-pick from the code
CHUI: TPVs may cherry-pick from the code

Currently, the code has yet to be made available to TPVs, and concerns have been raised by some TPV developers that integrating the CHUI code could be as much a headache as the Avatar Baking code. Given the work some have put into the communications elements of their own viewers, it is also possible that some might opt to cherry-pick which elements of the CHUI code they will adopt. Whether CHUI is liable to be deployed before or after the Avatar Baking project remains to be seen, as the Lab has yet to make a decision either way.

Server-side Avatar Baking

Avatar bake fail
Avatar bake fail

Project Sunshine, the work to implement a new server-side baking process, kicked-off (as far as  TPVs are concerned) just before Christmas. This represents a substantial code merge for TPVs, and one which is going to take TPVs a while to handle as a result, hence the reason why LL have given TPVs a long lead-time on the project, with around an eight-week window available for them to work on the code, provide feedback and assist with testing.

As mentioned in my detailed look at the new service (see link above), any deployment of the server code will be dependant upon further and significant load tests, which are viewed as essential in ensuring the new compositing service has sufficient hardware for it to support avatar baking across the entire grid. At the time that article was written, Nyx indicated that details on how the load tests would be handed had not been finalised.

Speaking at the TPV Developer Meeting, Oz indicated that these tests are still under consideration, and as such, much in the project is still up in the air in terms of unknowns. Obviously, on way in which load tests can be carried out is to have more test / development viewers available to enable greater testing of the server-side code, so overall implementation of the new service is somewhat symbiotic, and it is unlikely there will be a large-scale deployment of the service prior to TPVs being sufficiently comfortable / up-to-speed with integrating the code into their viewers.

As such, it is unlikely that there will be any major move on the Lab’s part to push the project forward much before the end of February. With regards to this, Oz commented, “Obviously, what we’d like to know is that we’ve got at least one version of all the third-party viewers that are prepared to cope with it, and that certainly getting an affirmative on as many of those as possible before we make a final call on what our target dates are would be really great. So that’s why we’re keeping the pressure on you to do that testing, as we’d rather you were ready before we were.”

Materials Processing

The materials processing project continues to move forward, although there are growing concerns over the fact that the viewer will be required to run in deferred mode (i.e. with shadows & lighting active) in order for the new capabilities to be properly rendered. This means that computers which do not have sufficient processing capabilities to run in deferred mode will not be able to render the effects of normal and specular maps, and so will not see the effects of materials processing.

When life gives you lemons, map them: on the left, a normal map, on the right, a normal and a specular map together (credit: Mind Teat Studios)
When life gives you lemons, map them: on the left, a normal map, on the right, a normal and a specular map together (credit: Mind Teat Studios)

However, this does not mean that those unable to run SL reliably or reasonably with deferred rendering enabled will have their SL experience negatively impacted. The expectation is that users on such system will continue to see SL as we all see it today, regardless as to whether or not in-world objects and avatar attachments (prim, sculpt or mesh) are using the new materials capabilities.

However, this is also conditional on content creators understanding how to correctly make use of materials process as it will apply to Second Life (especially those trying to leverage the new capabilities, but who may not themselves be able to run the viewer in deferred mode), and ensuring they use underpinning diffuse maps (textures) of a suitable quality. To help ensure this, Oz Linden has stated he will give those at the Lab responsible for the Good Building Practices guide on the wiki a nudge so that it is expanded to cover materials processing.

That materials processing does require running the viewer in deferred mode has given rise to concerns as to how widely the capability will be adopted. However, the Lab has no plans to try to implement materials processing in a way which does not require deferred rendering (assuming this could be done). This is not to exclude anyone from experiencing it, but rather because the capability simply requires deferred rendering to be enabled. Whether or not the capability will introduce an additional overheads to running in deferred has yet to be fully determined.

In the meantime, the repro for the viewer-side code required for materials processing will be officially made available (it was accidentally exposed just before Christmas), some time in the next two weeks or so, and a project viewer should appear shortly thereafter. The server-side code is thought to be in, “Pretty good shape.”

Continue reading “SL project news week 2 / 1, 2013: avatar baking, materials processing, CHUI and more”

CHUI: progressing towards mainstream release

I first took a look at the CHUI – the Communications Hub User Interface – project viewer on its announcement and release back in October. Since then, as noted in my SL project news updates it has gone through recent updates as it progresses towards readiness for mainstream release, quite possibly in the early part of 2013.

The past week has seen new updates to both the “release” version of the project viewer (December 22nd) and also to the “development” version of the viewer (December 24th). Both are available from the viewer download wiki page.

The “main” release – viewer 3.4.3.268591, was announced via a forum post, which highlighted the updates as:

  • Addition of notifications and notification preferences
  • Smaller Conversations and People windows with increased resizability
  • Adding more ways to get to certain functions. For example, we added a speak button to the Conversations window toolbar
  • Improved performance
  • Bug fixes and polish
The new "Speak" button in the confersations floater - available for IMs and open chat
The new “Speak” button in the conversations floater – available for IMs and open chat

The resized floaters is a good step forward, as is the greater control now available in resizing windows. There are still some elements missing from the conversations floater people my find convenient (or at least annoying because of their absence), in particular:

  • An ability to range IMs horizontally rather than vertically: many people prefer to have their IMs ranged horizontally, possible as a holdover from the “old” integrated conversations floaters which stretched back in 1.23.5. The problem here is that any move to incorporate this into the design would break with ergonomics of the “collapsible” nature of the current floater using the right / left pointing chevron buttons
  • The inclusion of a teleport button for the IM windows: this is altogether more useful, and it is hard to see why this was dropped from the redesign, given it is part of the current IM floater layout, and most likely a button which sees frequent use. OK, so teleports can still be achieved via the right-click context menu, but if convenience is the name of the game, it is hard to see why the teleport button has been ignored
The three compact views of the Conversations floater: one reason horizon IM tabs may not be incorporated
The three compact views of the Conversations floater: one reason horizon IM tabs may not be incorporated

Whither the Survey?

One thing still very much missing from the CHUI project is the promised user survey. When the project viewer was first launched in October, the Lab specifically asked people to try it out and consider a number of questions relating to it, noting that, “We’ll ask you to complete a survey in approximately one week to gather your thoughts on these questions.”

The survey has yet to appear. Whether this is because the feedback coming through the CHUI JIRA has been sufficient for the project team (and the amazing Whirly Fizzle has been generating an incredible amount of detailed and informative feeback!) is unclear.

Current Status

The precise status of the project is unclear, but it appears to be reaching a “feature complete” status – which again raises the question as to whether we ill see a survey on the project or not. Merging the project viewer to the 3.4.3 code base would appear to move it one step closer towards a viewer development  / beta viewer merge (both are now 3.4.4 code), but there are wider issues within the viewer still be rectified. For example, nothing happens at all when right clicking on any object contents – the usual context menu fails to appear. It’s therefore unlikely that the CHUI code will make an appearance in a development or beta viewer until such time as it has been confirmed problems like this have been identified and resolved.

In the meantime, and if you haven’t already done so and would like to, the CHUI JIRA remains open for comment, and the project viewer can be obtained from the SL Alternate Viewers wiki page (links below).

Related Links