Tag: Lab Gab

SL20B Lab Gab Special: Grumpity and Mojo Linden – summary notes + video

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Tuesday, June 27th, 2023, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring  Grumpity Linden, Linden Lab’s Vice President of Product, and Mojo Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Engineering.

The session was built around announcements and updates relating to various initiatives and product developments. Note that the following is not a direct transcript of the entire session, but is intended to record the key points discussed.

 Table of Contents

For ease of reference, timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comments directly to be able to do so.

A Little Background

[Video: 0:45-2:43]

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Mojo Linden: joined the Lab in 2021 at the Vice President of Engineering. A 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, he has been responsible for launching numerous games across multiple genres and platforms, and has a strong understanding of platforms, architectures, and product development and technical capabilities. In his role at the Lab, he has shown enormous openness and candour in seeking to increase the platform’s functionality and performance, and in pushing to expand SL’s capabilities.

Performance Improvements  and Technical Debt

[Video: 2:48-5:38]

  • Performance improvements in both the viewer and on the simulator / back-end has been a focus for the last two years, and remains a focus now.
  • The PBR [Physically-Based Rendering – also a see below] project will not only deliver better rendering and better looking world, it includes a range of viewer-side performance improvements – such as removing the viewer limitation on the amount of video memory it can use on a GPU under Windows, allowing for  better texture loading.
  • There is work in progress to update the simulator code to run on a 64-bit architecture, which will lead to further server-side performance improvements.
  • A challenge with improving SL is its 20-year lifespan, which means that while it has been updated throughout, it still has a high degree of technical debt in terms of the age of some of the code and services, due the fact that many technologies and capabilities didn’t exist when the platform was being built, etc.
  • Enhancing and improving the platform is therefore a balancing act between introducing new technology, new features and new capabilities whilst also working to ensure the underpinning code and continues to work as expect, and the back-end systems and services can be updated to work in “more modern ways”.

Product Roadmap 2023

[Video: 5:47-17:19]

In Brief

  • The upcoming New User Experience / Senra-brand mesh avatars – for more details, see my summary of Patch Linden’s Lab Gab session, together with the supporting web-based avatar customisation process [also see below for more].
  • The SecondLifeTime membership offer  – see: Linden Lab launches SecondLifeTime Premium and SecondLifeTime Premium Plus. In brief:
    • 200 SecondLifeTime Premium memberships for a one-off payment of US $749 for life and featuring all the benefits available to Premium subscribers.
    • 20 SecondLifeTime Premium Plus memberships for a one-off payment of US $1,749 for life and featuring all the benefits available to Premium Plus subscribers.
  • The launch of the first Linden Homes theme for Premium Plus – see: Looking at the Linden Premium Plus Homes Ranch theme in Second Life.
  • Updates and improvements to the “Land Journey”.
  • Further Marketplace updates and improvements, including making the MP mobile-responsive.
  • Further improvements to the updated Destination Guide.
  • Back-end systems updates (e.g. the architecture update, noted above), which may not always be user-visible.

Second Life Mobile

[Video 7:43-13:30]

Rendering in the SL Mobile app / viewer – screencap via the June 2023 development video from Linden Lab
  • Development work is continuing, with an emphasis on performance and rendering (for example: the capabilities of the hardware running SL Mobile is assessed to see if it can render with shadows enabled).
  • The user interface has been revised and improved, and the overall aim remains to provide an immersive an experience as possible, and provide users with an many of the capabilities found within the viewer as makes sense to include in a mobile device.
  • Work will continue in adding features and capabilities and refining SL Mobile over the next two quarters.
  • The current time frame for releases is:
    • Limited “private” alpha testing towards the end of 2023.
    • Broader user beta testing in 2024.
  • A new development video update was presented during the session.

Social Casino

[Video: 15:16-17:19]

  • Background: a low-key announcement (via Twitter) of a new format of casino launched by Linden Lab allowing casino-type games to be played without wagering L$ directly or offering prizes in L$ which can be later cashed-out, and thus “not gambling”.
  • Seen by LL as a means to provide users with a further opportunity for social engagement and entertainment, based on the idea that casino-style games and environments are popular social mediums in the physical world.
  • This has been a complex programme to work out, including the legal aspects, and has been made possible through Mojo Linden’s wide-ranging experience working for the likes of Double Down.
  • The experience is to be enhanced during the coming year with more in the way of prizes (e.g. transferring game chips for No Copy / No Transfer items), leader boards, and a grater variety of games.
  • The overall idea is to showcase the idea and encourage communities in Second Life to develop their own “social casinos” along similar lines.

Second Life Inventory Updates

[Video: 25:33-26:27]

  • A project has been underway to update the Inventory database schema to pave the way for the addition of a range of new features.
  • The first of these are the abilities to associate thumbnail images with Inventory items and folders, and to open individual inventory folders in their own windows.
Inventory Extensions in the Inventory Extensions project viewer: Item and folder contents preview images (l) and the Single Folder View (r)

The New User Experience

[Video: 17:25-20:22]

The New Welcome / Community Hubs

[Video: 17:25-18:26]

  • The first in a new series of Welcome  / Community Hubs designed to help incoming new users to get started in Second Life and provide them – and established users – with the opportunities to mingle, participate in games and events, seek assistance from mentors, etc., was recently launched alongside the Motown Experience (see: Linden Lab and Motown: a new approach to user on-boarding in Second Life).
  • The project has involved multiple teams / departments at the Lab, and is regarded as a “labour of love”.
  • There are plans to further enhance this approach to Welcome Hubs and to expand them to other communities / experiences.
The Second Life Welcome Centre sitting adjacent to the Motown Experience

New Avatar Customisation Flow

[Video: 18:36-20:22]

  • Alongside the Senra NUX avatars, the Lab will be launching a new avatar customisation flow for new users.
  • This will initially be web-based, and part of the sign-up flow, allowing incoming users to customise their avatars as the come into Second Life.
  • This will then be expanded so that the Senra avatars and the core clothing / accessories developed for them by Linden Lab will form a part of the Second Life library within the viewer’s inventory, and thus available to all users.
  • The improved avatar customisation flow will also be added to the viewer
  • As indicated by Patch Linden, there will be a dev kit + licensing agreement for creators wishing to produce and sell products into the Senra ecosystem as it develops, to hopefully provide broader choice for those using the Senra avatars.

Physically Based Rendering (PBR)

[Video: 20:33-22:09]

  • Background: a wide-ranging project to introduce PBR capabilities to Second Life using the Kronos glTF 2.0 specification.
    • The current project is to introduce glTF materials into Second Life, and this is now at Release Candidate status both in the viewer and on the Main grid (that latter on a limited basis at the time of writing).
    • It means some significant updates to rendering within Second Life, and offers notable improvements. Part of this work involves the introduction of Reflection Probes into Second Life to allow for better surface reflectivity in objects, etc.
    • A follow-on project from this work is already underway, allowing the “traditional” textures using a Second Life terrain to be replaced with glTF materials.
    • A further follow-on project is looking to  allow the controlled use of planar mirrors in-world, with real-time reflections (including avatars).
    • I attempt to provide updates to this project through my Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting summaries.
    • CCUG meeting are open to all users interested in content creation, and details of meetings can be found via the SL Public Calendar.

  • This project does introduce changes to content creation workflows (e.g. lighting and highlighting should not be baked into colour maps; rather full use should be made of the PBR maps (ambient occlusion, roughness, etc), and well as better workflow integration with established tools such as Adobe Substance 3D Painter.
  • The viewer is expected to remain in RC for an extended period, in part to allow the back-end support to be fully deployed on the Main grid, but also to allow for extensive testing by as wide a cross-section of content creators and general users as possible and the fact it does introduce a substantial change to the Second Life lighting model. Thus, LL want to offer as much time as possible for people to adjust to the viewer and also to report bugs, etc.

SL’s Future

[Video: 31:00-33:00]

  • In broad terms over the next 10 years: available to more platforms, becoming more of an “everyday companion” rather than being constantly tethered to a desktop / laptop environment.
  • Potentially new and different (to today’s) usage and use cases for SL as a result of it being more broadly available through different platforms, and how users view it as a platform / tool / entertainment, etc.
  • Continuing to innovate, having appeal to users and communities, foster community building, etc.

In Brief

  • [Video: 22:17-23:24] VR headset support:
    • Reaching a point where headsets can be supported is seen as a series of steps – such as improving the graphics (notably frame rates), looking at what needs to be considered in terms of UI, etc.
    • There are no fixed time frames linked to this work, nor are there any plans for partnerships with headset manufacturers.
    • It is more a case that the Lab is “interested” in headset support and that plans are in a gentle processes of formulation, rather than anything directly headset-related being actively worked on.
  • [Video: 23:34-25:24] LL and AI tools (Chat GPT, large language models (LLMs), etc.):
    • Could be used to make some engineering tasks more automated / productive, but not to the extent of replacing personnel at the Lab.
    • Various tools (such as Chat GPT) are already being leveraged in some testing.
    • In terms of customer data and feeding that into AI tools to assist with training, engineering, etc., it was noted that there are numerous, wide-ranging laws and requirements as to how customer data is handled [e.g. the GDPR, which although an EU set of regulations, does have a global impact], and LL itself has a long-standing history of not exposing real-world customer data. As such, simply feeding customer data into something like an LLM is not an option.
  • [Video: 26:29-28:10] BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – this is a long-standing issue and source of frustration.
    • Various fixes have been implemented to reduced the incidence of the issue, and more and on the way [including one which at the time of writing is with the Lab’s QA team].
    • There is no time frame as to when the issue will fully be resolved, but it will continue to be worked on. LL admits it is something of a black eye for them.
    • Currently, the suggested workaround is to locate an “empty” region (one with no / minimal avatars) and can use that as a point of log-in the issue should not occur.
    • Updates on this issue, when available, are given through the Simulator User Group meetings, and are reported on in my weekly SUG meeting summaries, for those interested.
  • [Video: 28:15-28:57] LSL scripting updates:
    • Small-scale updates are being routinely deployed (see: Coming Soon: Server Release 2023.06 [now deployed]).
    • There is an ambition / desire to implement larger projects, but the best way to implement these and the time frame for doing so is subject to internal discussions.
  • [Video: 28:58-29:47] Mac Support: LL remains dedicated to supporting MacOS, but it is admitted that support does tend to lag behind Windows development, and that there are performance issues, etc., still to be address within MacOS which may have been more fully addressed on the Windows platform.
  • [Video: 29:47-30:55] Audio improvements: while there are no specific projects on the table at present, there have been internal discussions at the Lab about improvements to SL’s in-world audio capabilities, sparked in part by the arrival of the engineers who transferred over to SL from High Fidelity.

 

SL20B Lab Gab Special: Patch Linden – summary notes

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Monday, June 26th, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring Vice President of Product Operations, Patch Linden.

The interview was built around questions submitted by users in the wake of the announcement of the session, together with those asking during the session via the live and  asked via You Tube audiences.

Notes:

  • The following is a summary, not a full transcript of everything said.
  • Timestamps to the video are included within each topic / sub-topic.
 Table of Contents

About Patch Linden

[Video: 5:09-14:10]

  • Originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007.
  • Initially worked as a support agent and then as a support liaison. From there he moved to the Concierge team, eventually becoming that team’s manager.
  • Shifted focus to the role of Operations Support Manager for a year, then moved to the Product group, the team responsible for defining the features, etc., found within Second Life.
  • At Product he developed the Land Operations team, which includes the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW).
  • In 2018, he established the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 2020 he oversaw the move to larger office space in Atlanta, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • In 2019 he was promoted to Vice President, Product Operations.
  • Together with Grumpity, Mojo and Brett Linden, he forms the leadership team overseeing Second Life’s continued development.
  • In his management team role, Patch continues to oversee all of the Lab’s user support operations (some 5 teams), including the LDPW.

Premium Membership and Linden Home Announcements

[Video 1 – 20:07-25:44]

Premium Membership Benefits

  • No specific announcements on additional benefits, but this is something LL are constantly reviewing to see what fits with the overall structure of Premium and Premium Plus.

SecondLifeTime Memberships

  • Two limited-time offers.
  • SecondLifeTime Plus:
    • All of the features of the current Premium
    • Limited to 200 users.
    • Once-time charge of US $749.
  • SecondLifeTime Premium Plus:
    • All of the features of the current Premium Plus
    • Limited to 20 users.
    • Once-time charge of US $1749.
  • Requests must be made via support ticket.
  • It may take time for requests to be responded to.
  • Please see this blog post or this official announcement for more.

Linden Homes

[Video: 14:25-20:06]

  • The next Linden Home theme to be released with the the Ranch Theme, which is dropping as a part of SL20B.
    • These are for Premium Plus subscriptions only, and have a 2048 sq m land parcel.
    • There are 7 styles within the theme.
    • They have a land impact of 703 LI.
    • The will not be subject to region request support tickets until July 10th.
    • See my blog post on the theme for more.
  • The next release after this is code-named “Thousand Island” – which is a hint as to the theme – and the code-name derived from salad dressings (coming off the back of “ranch” – geddit?).
  • [Video: 1:10:23-1:10:58] The Linden Homes web pages will be updated so that if you already have a Linden Home, it will be possible to see if a theme you’d like to switch to is currently available, rather than having to abandon your existing home in order to see the list of available themes via the web page .
Premium Plus Ranch Theme – June 2023

New User Experience (NUX)

[Video – 25:58-35:40]

New Starter Mesh Avatar

  • These were previewed at SL19B but are still to be released.
  • In the interim, the avatars have undergone further testing and approvement.
  • The project now has an overall brand name  – Senra (which fits with the Linden branding, given the latter is a tree and Senra is a genus of plant).
  • Alongside the new avatars, LL has developed a full line of clothing, accessories and attachments, which will be released at the same time as the avatars.
  • A devkit with licensing agreement, for creators wishing to support the new avatar ecosystem and producing clothing and accessories they may wish to sell into that environment, is also in the final stages of preparation for release.
  • These avatars and their clothing / accessories lines (both from LL and creators) will be featured in the new Welcome Hub shopping areas (see below).
  • The entire system is almost now ready for release, and is just waiting on a couple of pieces to be put into place. One of these is on the web side of SL, where incoming new users will be able to select an avatar and customise it .
A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatars now under the Senra brands, as originally unveiled at SL19B in June 2021 

New Welcome / Community Hubs

  • The new Motown Experience and the additional regions are a new Welcome Hub Experience.
  • It comprises multiple regions built around a central Welcome Area, which is part of the renewed Mentor programme.
  • Please see my blog post Linden Lab and Motown: a new approach to user on-boarding in Second Life.
  • This will be the model for future Welcome / Community Hubs.
  • The shopping area within the Hub idea will include times for the NUX Avatar described above, feature other items aimed at new starters, with stores being periodically rotated for different creators.
  • Within the current Hub, the Motown Experience will continue to be expanded in terms of events and offerings.
  • Other partnerships along this line are under consideration, and may be seen Soon™.

Initiatives in Development: TV Show Partnership

[Video: 35:41-37:00]

  • As noted above, the new Welcome Hub features a partnership with Capitol Record Group via their Motown label.
  • This is the latest in a series of partnership with external organisations (Adult Swim, Zenescope, Film Threat, etc.).
  • These are likely to continue.
  • Currently, development is in the works to see Second Life featured in a “fairly significant TV show” which is currently airing (at least in the US, if not on streaming services in general – details were not made clear – and about to enter its 2nd season). Within it, SL will have a “pretty prominent placement”.

Mainland Development

[Video: 49:59-54:26]

  • Due to the volume of work the LDPW is committed to, there have been changes in priority for various projects, meaning resources do get swapped between projects according to demand.
  • However, there are a number of Mainland initiatives underway, which may not always be particularly visible, but which are proceeding as resources allow (e.g. ongoing work to improve the Second Life Railroad (SLRR) and Mainland roads infrastructure).
  • As the page is turned with regards to the old Linden Homes themes and mini-continents, it is anticipated that more Mainland-focused work and activities will come to prominence. For example (and allowing for their historical value) Mainland Hubs might be given an update / refresh in the future).
  • In addition, it is likely that new features such as the upcoming PBR Terrain project (see: 2023 week #20: SL CCUG meeting summary: mirrors and PBR terrain – this blog, and Sneak Peek: Shaking Up the Terrain with Physically-Based Rendering – official blog, for details), although it was noted that care with this would have to be taken in how this is done to ensure full and proper consistency across regions and parcels.
  • Mainland residents with ideas for Mainland improvements can (preferably) submit them as Feature Requests through the  Second Life Jira, although they can be accepted via a Support ticket.

General Q&A

  • General observations in opening comments:
    • Linden avatars may at times be carrying a tablet. This is apparently clickable and related to the Bellisseria / Mainland passport system (run via the Bellisseria Bureau of Bureaucracy – residents who have a BBB passport can touch an Linden’s tablet and obtain their “passport stamp”.
    • The inclusion of Adult themed regions at SLB20B and the Shop and Hop was a conscious decision to express all of SL’s diversity at a milestone event.
  • [Video: 40:19-42:55] Last Names:
    • Will previously-offered Last Names be brought back? – Probably not, unless the name generates an exceptional number of requests for it to be brought back – and even then it would mean reversing a public statement that “used” Last Names would not be re-featured.
    • Will the cadence of new Last Name options be increased? – releases have largely been with an event / seasonal focus (with some themed offerings as well). It is unlikely this will change.
  • [Video: 43:00-45:40] Adult Linden Home Regions:
    • This has been requested from time-to-time.  However, as:
      • Adult activities / furnishings are permitted in private homes within Moderate Regions (+ Parcel Privacy can be invoked),
      • And additional research by the Lab suggests there is not a general request for residential places with Adult activities can be acted on in public,
      • It is not seen as offering benefit at present, at least in terms of replicating the current themes of Linden Homes within Adult-rated regions.
    • That said, this doesn’t preclude the potential for a special “Adult Theme” of Linden Homes within their own regions, were sufficient demand to arise. There are just no plans in the works for anything like this at present.
  • [Video 45:49-47-29] Zindra / Horizons:
    • Is Zindra (the Adult continent) ever going to be “finished” (in regards to shape, coastlines, etc)?
      • Yes. There are plans to add on to the Adult continent. However, this may not be done utilising the current Zindra “theme”.
      • Rather there are plans in development which may result in a complete overhaul / update of Zindra (at least in terms of the core builds by the LDPW).
    • Is it possible to order Private regions attached to Zindra or the Adult Horizons regions? – Yes, but with a caveat:
      • LL operate the Community Land Partnership Programme (CLPP), and requests for Private regions to join with LL continents as a whole (including Zindra and Horizons) must comply with the requirements of this programme.
  • [Video: 47:47-49:50] Can users consult with LL directly over issues of ToS, copyright, and other policies?
    • The best route for general enquiries / questions on matter of TOS and other SL policies as enforced by LL is via Support, who can generally answer general questions and provide assistance with navigating the policies to gain a clearer understanding.
    • However, Support (and user-facing LL staff in general) cannot consult on legal matters or provide any form of legal advice or recommendations, although very specific questions might be escalated to the Legal Dept for feedback.
    • Where matters of TOS / Community Standards  / violations are concerned, users should file these via the Abuse Report mechanism.
  • [Video: 54:55-58:34] The SL20B Sweepstakes:
  • [Video: 58:46-1:03:39] Demographics over the years:
    • There have been shifts in demographics over the years, some of which are clearly visible in-world, thanks to the changing face of content creation (e.g. from hobbyists happy to bang prims together to semi-professional mesh creators).
    • There have also been other shifts that have been visible – from the technically curious and engaged to the more socially-seeking users (in terms of making connections, seeking social events, etc.).
    • Demographics and changing patterns as a whole are something the Lab tracks as a part of efforts to try to encourage more people to enter SL and become engaged with it.
    • This will continue in the future as LL continue to seek to engage and draw and keep SL vibrant and active as a platform. It may include casting back to older initiatives and trying them again (hence the recent informal Twitter poll by Alexa Linden on Teen Grid and perhaps bringing that back), if it is believed they might work – not that a return of Teen Grid is currently in the works.

VWBPE 2023: Grumpity & Patch Linden – What’s Up at the Lab? – a summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
via VWBPE

On Thursday, March 23rd, 2023 Grumpity Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Operations and Patch Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Product Operations, both of them members of the company’s management team, attended the 2023 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference to discuss Second Life.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised. The notes provided have been taken directly from the official video of the session, which is embedded at the end of this article. Time stamps to the video are also provided to the relevant points in the video for those who wish to listen to specific comments.

Notes:

  • This is a summary, not a full transcript, and items have been grouped by topic, so may not be presented chronologically when compared to the video.
  • Timestamps are included to allow a direct jump to a subject / comment.

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

The Environment at the Lab and Use of SL

A general discussion on working at L:inden Lab – the environment / atmosphere -, on how often Lindens log into SL (and how some specifically do so using alts as well as their Linden accounts), etc. Please refer to the first 15  minutes of the video for details.

Product Development Path

SL Mobile

[Video: 15:42-23:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023.

  • A re-iteration that LL are working on a fully immersive Mobile solution for both Android and iOS.
  • Limited feature set beta in development, aimed primarily at existing users rather than trying to support the New User Experience (NUX).
  • The first release will be “broad but shallow” – rendering the world, teleporting, using chat, with the focus on getting as high a quality of rendering as possible.
    • Dealing with user-generated content (in-world and worn on avatars) which is largely unoptimised for a run-time environment like Second Life has been a challenge on the rendering side.
  • Capabilities such as complex interactions with in-world objects, the inclusion of Voice and similar will be added over time as the app is iteration on and enhanced. However, streaming audio (music) is liable to be implemented ahead of any Voice support.
  • However, while the capabilities will be iterated on over time, Mobile is not intended to offer full parity in terms of functionally as the full viewer.
  • [Video: 47:38-48:36] The initial BETA release of the Mobile app will likely not be before the last quarter of 2023.

NUX and New Starter Avatars

[Video: 23:48-28:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023.

  • LL is working on improving the whole user on-boarding and new user experience (NUX) path for those coming into SL for the first time.
  • This work includes new “full mesh”, one piece (head, body, hands, feet) avatars (previewed at SL19B), which will be supported by a full complement of clothing and accessory options
A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatar, which will use by mesh clothing and Bakes on Mesh, and be open for creators to design clothing and accessories
  • The NUX process will involve smoother on-boarding from the web (sign-up, etc.) and include viewer-side changes to make getting started with SL easier and more intuitive, and making it easier for those coming into SL to get a good start.
  • The first part of this work to surface is likely to be the updated sign-up workflow and on-boarding from the web (including selecting one of the new avatars and carrying out some customisation at that point – thus avoiding the need to get into the complexities of using Inventory, etc., within the viewer).
  • The second part of the work “later on” will simplify the avatar customisation process within the viewer, and it is hoped the third-party viewer community will build on this work as well.
  • The new avatars, coupled with the new on-boarding path, are seen as a mean for communities leverage / user SL to develop their own on-boarding paths using the RegAPI to bring their particular audiences / users into the platform.
    • This could potentially extend down to the level of communities providing specific outfits / clothing for the users they are bringing into SL (e.g. a selection of uniforms or similar for a military role-play group; t-shirts and hoodies with a school or college logo on them for an educational group, etc.).
  • This will be leveraged by Mobile so that users coming into SL via the Mobile option will be able to customise their avatars through the on-boarding process.

PBR Materials and Puppetry

[Video: 31:41-35:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023, my Content Creation User Group meeting summaries and my Puppetry Project user group meeting summaries.

  • The next set of capabilities to be deployed will be the Physically Based Rendering materials capabilities and reflection probes.
    • The core of this work is to support a new approach to material maps / surfaces either directly on products developed for SL by content creators or which can be used modify personal items and creations. They are designed to give objects a sense of physical world lighting and reflection, drawing on the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification.
    • This work represents a significant technical step forward in graphical rendering for SL (in the order of 10 years), and will take a step towards facilitating things like dynamic planar mirrors which can reflect avatars in-world (with some constraints around the capability).
    • Documentation and materials in support of the PBR Materials and reflection probes is in the process of being developed.
  • Animation imports is a project that is in the pipeline, but is currently more an offshoot of the Puppetry Project.
  • The Puppetry Project is in progress, but has expanded beyond the original outline, and can be regarded as “coming soon™”. This work includes motion capture from devices as basic as a web camera, as well as potentially supporting more capable hardware, and broadcasting / streaming the results in-world in real time (so you can wave you avatar’s hand, beckon someone – even potentially reach out and pick up an object, etc.).
  • More information on the PBR work and what follows it, and the Puppetry Project will be made available as this work continues.

SL20B – The 20th Anniversary

[Video: 29:15-31:40]

See also: SL20B: theme, music festival & performer applications, March 2023.

via Linden Lab
  • SL20B is anticipated as being a “very large event”, given it is the 20th anniversary, with the event regions almost doubling in number.
  • When the exhibitor applications are opened, communities and groups from across SL are encouraged to apply and take part in the event.
  • As well as performances and entertainment, SL20B will open up for panels, talks and discussions, applications for which will also be opening soon.

Upcoming / Future Work

[Video: 36:08-42:32]

Translation tools

LL note that the current translation tools within the viewer are getting long in the tooth, so there will be a project to make sure they are properly supported. After that, it is hoped a project can be put together to move translation server-side. The specification for this work is still being developed internally at the Lab, and more details may be available for public consumption in the future.

Family Names

  • Linden Lab has long run a Custom Name Programme, allowing qualified users to pay for personalised avatar names.
  • This is being expanded to allow the introduction of a new subset of custom last names: Family Names.
  • Family Names will allow a user to purchase into a last name, and then elect / allow a certain number of accounts to use that last name.
  • This capability is something that has been requested by users, and is seen as having a number of use-cases.
  • Further information on Family Names will be made available as and when the capability is ready to be released.

Streaming Solution Option

  • Aside from the Mobile app, LL is looking at a streaming capability for Second Life (that is, running a viewer instance on a cloud server and streaming the results to a browser).
  • If developed, it would “come in at a more reasonable price-point” than past efforts (SL Go and Bright Canopy).
  • Even so, it would not be intended to be a means for day-to-day access to Second Life, but more something that could benefit specific communities / events / activities.
  • LL may well take further steps to solicit wider feedback on this idea.

General Q&A

[Video: 42:40-46:36]

  • Will there be a payable “lifetime account” option? “Maybe. Time will tell”.
  • Is the Education Discount still available – Yes.
  • Will the new features being developed prevent users on older hardware from using SL? Not necessarily – although very , very old hardware may not be able to run some of the newer features, so may have to rely on “legacy” modes (where available).

Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Friday, March 10th, 2023, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring the Office of Second Life: Grumpity Linden, Mojo Linden and Patch Linden.

The session was built around announcements and updates relating to various initiatives and product developments. Note that the following is not a direct transcript of the entire session, but is intended to record the key points discussed.

For ease of reference, timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comment directly to be able to do so.

 Table of Contents

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Mojo Linden: joined the Lab in 2021 at the Vice President of Engineering, filling the shoes worn for so long by Oz Linden. A 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, he has been responsible for launching numerous games across multiple genres and platforms, and has a strong understanding of platforms, architectures, and product development and technical capabilities. In his role at the Lab, he has shown enormous openness and candour in seeking to increase the platform’s functionality and performance, and in pushing to expand SL’s capabilities.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

Second Life Mobile

[Video 0:00-4:42 and 6:36-7:57]

Grumpity Linden holds up a mobile ‘phone showing Second Life running on it using the upcoming SL Mobile capability
  • Built upon Unity.
  • Core development of this product began in October 2022, with the aim of gaining as high a fidelity of experience on mobile as is possible.
  • Works on all platforms – Android, iOS, tablets, ‘phones.
  • The product is still very much in development, with the focus having been on graphics fidelity, including full avatar rendering.
  • There is some way to go before the product is ready for release – work at the moment is on smoothing out some of the rendering edge cases before moving on to adding further functionality.
  • Initial release is planned for late 2023 with limited functionality, which will then be iterated upon to add more and more functionality and capabilities.

Land Pricing and Fees

[Video: 8:59-12:06]

  • See: Infrastructure Investment Update: Buy/Sell Fee Change and Land Pricing Effective Mar 6, 2023 – official blog post.
  • Grumpity re-iterated the drive (initiated by the late Ebbe Altberg, not long after he joined LL as CEO in 2014) to lower the cost of virtual land in SL – as had long been called for by SL residents – whilst also offsetting the lower land tiers through increases in fees elsewhere within the platform.
  • The fee increases  – as noted in the official blog post – also relate to increased costs LL has faced, thanks to the general economic situation.
  • The fact that the option for paying for land using L$ (restricted to Premium Plus subscribers and limited to one region only at the time of writing) is higher than the USD fee for the same is explained as being a combination of the facts that the L$ to USD exchange rate, the fact that LL have to do the lifting of conversion from L$ to LSD through the LindeX, and as such must participate in the SL economy.
  • It was also noted that paying in L$ means subscribers avoid being charged VAT / state sales tax / similar.

Bots and Policies

[Video: 12:09-13:05]

  • Most likely raised in relation to ongoing concerns about the amount of data being gathered by the BonnieBot system (which has done much to raise the visibility of bots (aka Scripted Agents) in general), and which has also seen some heavy-handed forum moderation on the part of LL. So details can be found threads  – see Has anyone else noticed the B[xxxx] accounts? Sorry. This is not OK. B bots profile scraping and Questions for the Lindens.
  • Whilst the BonnieBot website has take steps away from publishing information which might be regarded as being within Second Life under the expectation it is private (a point that Linden Lab seemingly missed in their initial responses to forum thread postings), the Lab has recognised the need for clearer / better policies and has promised to provide them.
  • These new policies have gone through the necessary compliance and legal reviews within Linden Lab, and will hopefully be published in week #11 (commencing Monday, March 13th, 2023).
  • In addition, a new set of estate / region controls are being developed to enable estate / region holders to better control the use of Scripted Agents within their land. These will be deployed “soon” – hopefully within weeks of this session being aired.

PBR – Physically Based Rendering and Graphics

[Video: 13:10-18:00]

  • (Note: this topic is also covered within my Content Creation User Group meeting summaries.)
  • In brief: PBR essentially models the flow of light within computer graphics in a manner which mimics light reflections on surfaces in the physical world.
  • It represents a significant technical step forward in graphical rendering for SL (in the order of 10 years).
  • The core of this work is to support a new approach to material maps / surfaces either directly on products development for SL by content creators or which can be used on suitable objects within Second Life, which give they sense of physical world lighting and reflection.
  • In particular, it draws on the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification, and allows creators to more readily use a range of tools supporting that standard (including Blender) and also contents libraries, etc., in support of their work.
An Intel-developed scene imported by Nagachief Darkstone and WindowsCE to demonstrate reflection probes (note the reflections on the knight’s armour – these are not generated by attached environment lights but by a reflection probe within the building structure. Image courtesy of Rye Cogtail
  • Also included in the PBR work is reflection probes – which in simple terms enable light sources to generate reflections of an in-world scene on suitable surfaces (i.e. those using the materials system).
  • None of this work does not necessarily mean users need higher specification computers in order to view it; however, reflection probes can impact system performance, so the viewer will include an option to enable / disable these if they prove to be a performance hit for people.
  • Demos of the PBR work, including an imported Sponza scene, can be found on the following regions on Aditi (the Beta grid):  Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • The PBR viewer itself – required to see the content on Aditi, is (at the time of writing) still in the Project Viewer stage (so not ready for use as a primary viewer!) and is available through the Alternate Viewers page.
  • The next stage of the project is to provide support on Agni (the main grid) and promote the viewer to Release Candidate status, both for more widespread testing, but there is no set time frame for this to happen.
  • This work does not mean LL are investing in a new graphics engine – this work, and the recent performance improvements work has been on updating and enhancing the existing graphics engine to better support users and what might be regarded as recognised graphics standards.

Mirrors in SL

[Video: 16:23-17:26]

  • The PBR work takes SL some way towards provisioning real-time planar (that is, flat) mirrors.
  • Once the initial PBR work has been deployed, LL plans to start work on offering planar mirrors in some capacity.
  • Further details on this can be found in my 2023 week 7: SL CCUG and TPVD meeting summaries: Mirrors! article.

Graphics API

[Video: 17:27-18:00]

  • While the graphics rendering engine is not being changed, per the above notes, the graphics API will be changing.
  • As OpenGL is going increasingly old (and has been deprecated by Apple), plans are in hand to move the Graphics API to Vulkan (and MoltenVK for Mac).
  • This switch will further enhance SL’s graphics capabilities, and work on the switch-over should commence later in 2023.

Viewer Updates

[Video: 18:00-19:50]

Inventory Updates

  • (Note: Updates on the progress of the Inventory work can generally be found in my TPV Developer meeting summaries.)
  • Work is in progress to provide updates to Inventory management, some of which are designed to help with avatar customisation.
  • The first part of this is to provide an “Inventory thumbnails” capability – offering a thumbnail image of items in Inventory.
  • Alongside of this will be a single folder Inventory view.
  • These are not seen as major gamer changers, but rather quality of life improvements for new and existing users.

Emojis

  • LL is still working on integration the Catznip Emoji code contribution to all emojis in chat and IMs.
  • A project viewer for this should be available in “weeks”.

Linux Support

[Video: 20:48-21:30]

  • The current stop-gap for Linux is running the Windows viewer through Wine or Proton.
  • The need to provide direct Linux support is recognised, but updating the tools to make this possible is not on the roadmap for 2023.

SL and VR

[Video 19:56-20:47]

  • VR still requires a consistent 60 fps left eye / right eye), and for many; the feeling at LL is that  SL is not there yet even with all the recent performance improvements.
  • Various initiatives – adoption of Vulkan, the Puppetry Project – should help improve things further,  and LL might reconsider VR headset support in 2024.

Marketplace Updates

[Video: 21:33-24:52]

  • Marketplace Search was updated with significant changes to ElasticSearch (the underpinning Second Life and Marketplace Search) – see: We’re Improving Marketplace Search. 
  • This was a large update (lifting the search engine from version 2.3 to 8.4, and did involve some issues on deployment, which are being addressed – see: Updates to Marketplace Search.
  • Further fixes and improvements to the update will be deployed in due course, the first of which will be Boolean searches.
  • A fix for Featured Lists not updating correctly is also due to be deployed “soon”.

New User Experience (NUX) Mesh Avatar

[Video: 25:49-27:46]

A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatar, which will use by mesh clothing and Bakes on Mesh, and be open for creators to design clothing and accessories
  • That said, the project has taken longer to develop than had been anticipated.
  • There will be a dev kit for creators wishing to support the NUX Avatars. This will be launched ahead of the release of the new avatars.
  • The entire system is intended to be “PBR ready” in that PBR materials may not be included in the clothing and accessories released by the Lab, but the items will be capable of supporting the use of PBR materials on them.

Linden Homes Update

[Video: 27:30-28:09]

  • A full update will be coming soon.
  • The first range of Premium Plus Linden Homes is nearing completion.
  • Updates and expansions to the current Premium Linden Homes – like the Victorian – are being prepared.

Second Life User Group Meetings

[Video: 24:54-25:47]

Closing Comments

[Video 28:10-End]

Everyone is pretty much having fun with the SL Mobile project, and hopes were expressed that a “blooper” reel could be made available. It was also indicated that news on the theme for the 20th Second Life Anniversary event (SL20B) will be made available in due course.

Lab Gab with Grumpity, Mojo and Patch Linden streams on March 10th

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

At 09:00 SLT on Friday, March 10th, 2023, there will be pre-recorded Lab Gab session, featuring three of the Lab’s Second Life leadership team: Grumpity Linden, Mojo Linden and Patch Linden. They will be discussing all things SL-related and responding to questions submitted in advance of the event.

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Mojo Linden: joined the Lab in 2021 at the Vice President of Engineering, filling the shoes worn for so long by Oz Linden. A 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, he has been responsible for launching numerous games across multiple genres and platforms, and has a strong understanding of platforms, architectures, product development and technical capabilities. In his role at the Lab, he has shown enormous openness and candour in seeking to increase the platform’s functionality and performance, and in pushing to expand SL’s capabilities.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

If you have a question you’d like Grumpity, Moho or Patch (or all three!) to answer, be sure to submit it via Lab Gab Google Form, and to do so before 09:00 SLT, on Thursday March 9th. The session will be shown of the Second Life You Tube channel, I hope to have a summary of the session available some time after it has streamed; in the meantime, the salient details are summarised below.

Viewing Details

Lab Gab with Grumpity and Patch – summary notes

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Friday, October 21st, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring Vice President of Product, Grumpity Linden and VP of Product Operations, Patch Linden.

The session was built around questions submitted by users in the wake of the announcement of the session, together with those asked via You Tube chat during the live stream.

Notes:

  • The following is a summary, not a full transcript of everything said.
  • A glitch during streaming meant the session extends over two videos. Both are embedded in this summary.
  • Timestamps to each video are included within each topic / sub-topic.

 

 Table of Contents

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden

  • Heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach.
  • Originally came to Linden Lab while working for The Product Engine, a company providing end-to-end consulting and software development services, and which supports viewer development at the Lab, and she was initially involved in the development and viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio).
  • She became a “full-time Linden” in 2014. Her current position involves coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life (e.g. Engineering and QA), liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, etc. This work can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.
  • Prior to working for Linden Lab, she was involved in a number of industries, including technology, higher education, and oil & gas. She enjoys exploring worlds both virtual and physical and takes pride in building bridges – personal and professional.
  • Holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s from same in Computer Science & Psychology, both from Johns Hopkins University. She finds leading the Second Life product a joy because it allows her to draw on both areas of study.

About Patch Linden

  • Originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007.
  • Initially worked as a support agent and then as a support liaison. From there he moved to the Concierge team, eventually becoming that team’s manager.
  • Shifted focus to the role of Operations Support Manager for a year, then moved to the Product group, the team responsible for defining the features, etc., found within Second Life.
  • At Product he developed the Land Operations team, which includes the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW).
  • In 2018, he established the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 2020 he oversaw the move to larger office space in Atlanta, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • In 2019 he was promoted to Vice President, Product Operations.
  • Together with Grumpity, Mojo and Brett Linden, he forms the leadership team overseeing Second Life’s continued development.
  • In his management team role, Patch continues to oversee all of the Lab’s user support operations (some 5 teams), including the LDPW.

New Announcements

[Video 1 – 1:13-5:23]

Land Economy and Pricing

  • Lower-priced Premium option to allow more access to Mainland for users.
  • The amounts paid for the different Mainland tiers are to be reviewed with a view to drawer them closer together.
  • Premium Plus will be able to hold a Homestead regions without having to pay for a Full region (so Premium + subscription + $109 a month tier for a Homestead).

European Premium Subscriptions

  • It was hinted that Premium (P+) subscribers in Europe will hopefully get some good news in the near future (removal of VAT from all subscription options?).

These are all to be formally announced in November.

Recent Announcements

[Video 1: 5:35-15:35]

Tilia and JP Morgan Payments

  • As per the official announcement from Tilia, plus my own blog post, Tilia has received a minority investment from JP Morgan Payments.
  • This partnership will allow Tilia to expand its services (again, see my blog post).
  • This does not change the relationship between Tilia and Second Life, and Second Life users’ data remains as secure as before the partnership JP Morgan Payments do not gain access to this data.
  • In the future it may also lead to further benefits to SL users in terms of payment / cash out options for obtaining L$ or processing L$ amount to fiat currencies.

CasperTech Acquisition

  • LL have had a long relationship with CasperTech, and the services and tools offered fit with a lot of the Lab’s needs as well as being heavily relied upon by a lot of users an businesses.
  • The acquisition was therefore seen as both a means to help grow the CasperTech business and ensure its continued longevity and stability.

Premium Plus and Speedlight

  • At the start of October, LL announced Premium Plus members can make use of a special tier of access to the Speedlight Second Life client.
    • This benefit is purely as a result of an agreement reached between LL and the Speedlight team (Speedlight remains a third-party viewer in terms of its definition).
    • Speedlight is not part of the Lab’s own mobile development efforts.
  • Within the own Mobile plans, the Lab is working on an option that gives “as high as” visual fidelity as can be obtained on a desktop system.
    • There may be some in-progress teasing of this option “in early 2023”.

Puppetry Announcement

  • Originally referred to as “avatar expressiveness”, this project is still in the early phases of development.
  • IIt essentially allows a user’s head / arm movements to be captured via webcam and translated into avatar head / arm movements (but not facial expressions at this time), and more capabilities may be added as the protocols and functions are added.
  • The project is in very early development, and is being worked on in concert with user-developers within the Puppetry User Group.
  • Those interested can join the Puppetry User Group meetings or can follow development via my Puppetry Project summaries.

New User Experience (NUX)

[Video 1 – 15:00-19:38]

  • LL ran a survey among users who have joined since 2018 with the aim of getting feedback from a good cross-section of users who have joined and stayed with the platform in more recent years.
  • The feedback from this survey is being used to help guide LL’s thinking WRT the NUX and going forward.
  • A specific question in the survey was (paraphrasing) “what was the one thing that almost saw you walk away from Second Life when you first started?”
    • Performance issues was one of the most frequent responses to this question, and it is hoped that the Performance Improvements recently deployed, and those coming upon the Performance Floater / Auto FPS viewer (at Project status at the time of writing) have and will help overcome these shortfalls.
  • Alongside of this, popular reasons for almost quitting were (presumably in order): avatar customisation, finding things to do and getting to meet people.
  • As a result, LL will soon be rolling out “some big improvements to a first-time avatar customisation process”.

New Starter Mesh Avatars

  • These were previewed at SL19B. and are now very close to being released – which may happen “in the next couple of months”.
  • There will be an initial ecosystem of hair, clothing, skins, etc., that will be available when the new avatars are launched.
  • In advance of the release, a developer kit + documentation will likely be made available to creators who also want to get involved in the NUX avatar ecosystem and develop clothing and accessories for the line, which they can sell.
  • These avatars and their accessories might even form a special element within future LL Shop’n’Hop events.

New Viewer and Simulator Capabilities

[Video 1 – 1938-end]

PBR Materials + Reflection Probes

  • This is an in-progress project which I am covering in my CCUG meeting summaries.
  • As noted by Grumpity, this work will include reflection probes, which are not dynamic mirrors in the way that most people will think of mirrors when that word is used.
    • However, it has been suggested that a  future enhancement to the work might be used to provided some limited degree of planar mirrors (i.e. like those you might hang on a wall) – but contrary to the video, this work is not part of the initial PBR / reflection probes work.

Linkset Data

  • See https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Linkset_Data.
  • Allows data to be stored within objects within a linkset, which can be read by scripts within that linkset.
  • This could revolutionise create types of in-world object and vastly improve the lives of scripters.
  • The back-end support for this work will hopefully be deployed to RC channel simhosts on Wednesday, October 26th, subject to LL’s QA.
  • I hope to have a special Gust Article explaining this capability in this blog shortly after the RC deployment.

General Topics

Second Life Search

[Video 2 – 1:14-4:21]

  • SL has a number of Search instances:
    • The web search (powered by Elascticsearch) at search.secondlife.com and which appears as the first tab in most viewer search floaters.
    • Marketplace search (also powered by Elasticsearch).
    • People Search.
  • Web search was recently updated, notably with a search relevance engine, with the intent of making returns and results more accurate.
    • Relevance in particular should continue to improve due to the “learning” nature of the AI-driven relevance engine.
    • This work also folded-in adding a full range of Boolean search options.
  • A decision has yet to be made on how often web search should be indexed. This currently occurs twice a day, but more frequent updates would allow more recent additions – stores, etc – in-world, to be recorded.
  • Similar work is now in progress with the Marketplace search, and it is hoped these changes will be deployed before year-end.
  • People Search uses a different back-end system, and there are currently no plans to make changes to this.

Marketplace Updates

[Video 2 – 4:21-4:54]

  • For the latest on Marketplace updates, please refer to my monthly Web User Group summaries, which include current status and promised updates such as listing variances (aka Styles), etc.

Linden Home Updates

[Video 2 – 6:03-7:11]

  • Plans are still “on track” to get new floor plan these released for some of the existing Linden Home designs before the end of the year.
  • The First Premium Plus selection of Linden Homes will be the Ranch theme, and are being targeted for a possible end of 2022 / start of 2023 release.
  • There will be more themes for both premium and Premium Plus.

Mainland

[Video 2 – 7:13-9:33]

  • Improvements and updates to the Mainland roads is part of the on-going general work of the LDPW.
  • Allowing users to provide intersections between LDPW roads and private roads is a good idea – but overseeing / inspecting the work when carried out by residents can take time away form other work, and so is something that may be considered in the future.
  • The LDPW already provides switches, branches and connections between resident-owned rail lines and those of the SLRR. However, these are easier to handle as they are a lot fewer.

HiFi and Second Life

[Video 2 – 11:41-12:21]

  • As I reported at the time, at the start of 2022, High Fidelity Inc. invested in Linden Lab and Second Life.
  • The investment took the form of cash, expertise (several members of the High Fidelity team moves across to Linden Lab) and patients.
  • The latter sparked speculation (including by myself) that some of High Fidelity’s work is full spatial audio could be coming to SL.
  • This is something that has been discussed internally at LL, but would require a lot of changes being made if SL and the viewer are to support the HiFi audio. As such, it is something that is still “under consideration”.

VR Headset Support in SL

[Video 2 – 12:29-14:05]

  • VR has traditionally been limited by the requirement for sustained high frame rates (around 60 fps with modern headsets). This has tended to be problematical for Second Life, although the current and upcoming performance improvements go some way to alleviating the issue.
  • VR headsets are also very much in the minority in terms of general computer use, and their usage still represents a small sub-set of SL users, and headsets are certainly not as ubiquitous as mobile devices.
  • As such, while moves have been made to “bring SL to VR”, it is not a priority at this time and is certainly not an active project.

Closing Comments

[Video 2 -14:20-end]

  • Please refer to the video.