Tag: Mesh Deformer

SL projects update 24 (1): Viewer news – materials, SSB/A, deformer, snapshots

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update: In further tests of the FIRE-9097 “fix” at lower resolutions (e.g. 2650 pixels across), I found it can re-introduce the tiling artefacts in snapshots.

General Viewer News

Materials Processing

The release of an update to the materials beta viewer on Wednesday June 5th (3.6.0.276961) was followed at the weekend by the arrival of a further beta version – 3.6.0.277049 – with accompanying release notes. Commenting on the rapid-fire releases, Oz linden said at the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday June 10th, “We’re getting close to the end of its beta cycle (or put another way… report your bugs now).”

Snapshot Issues

We’re all aware of the snapshot tiling issue which plagued SL photographers for a good while, which would leave “tiling” artefacts on images taken at higher resolutions than the user’s monitor resolution when running in deferred mode (now known as Advanced Lighting Model). A fix for this issue (MAINT-628) finally reached the public in late 2012, but brought with it some additional issues. On of the most notable of these was the appearance of black rectangles in very high resolution images.

Very high-resolution "black rectangle" issue common to viewers utilsing the MAIN-628 "tiling" fix (image courtesy of Dil Spitz)
Very high-resolution “black rectangle” issue common to snapshots taken with viewers utilsing the MAIN-628 “tiling” fix (image courtesy of Dil Spitz)

This latter problem most recently caused an additional outcry when the LL “tiling” fix was finally incorporated in Firestorm viewer earlier in 2013, with many users incorrectly blaming the Firestorm team for the problem.

Well, for all and sundry, Firestorm users or otherwise, there is some potentially good news on the horizon.

Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as JPG (click to enlarge)
Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as JPG (click to enlarge)

Commenting on the broader issues reported with snapshots duing the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday June 10th, Oz Linden said:

It looks like there are fixes in the MAINT pipeline for those. I don’t know how soon those will be out… I can try to find out if they have a project build ready.

Additionally, there is further news specifically for Firestosm users. While it is somewhat outside the scope of “SL project news”, it is neverthless reporting here.

Nicky Dasmijn has been working on the problem, and has implemented a fix for the issue (see Firestorm JIRA FIRE-9097), which should correct matters for snaps of up to 4096×4096 pixels without any “rectangle” artefacts appearing or with any regression to issues of tiling, and which may work at high resolutions than that for some.

tile-test-6K_001
Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as PNG – note rectangle artefact (click to enlarge)

I tried a very rough-and-ready test of the fix. I found that capturing images up to 5,000-5,600 pixels across with the aspect ratio maintained worked OK for me. Anything around 6,000 pixels across saw JPG images save OK, but rectangle artefacts begin to appear when saving in PNG (see both images on the right)

However, as I’ve recently been experiencing other GPU issues, I’ve been unable to ascertain if the rectangles are down to an issue with the code or simply a matter of my GPU running out of resources when processing PNG images above 5600 pixels across.

The fix is currently in a recent Firestorm pre-release, and will hopefully make the cut for the next formal release. It is currently unclear whether the code has been / will be contributed to LL, and if so, whether they will adopt it or opt to go with their own forthcoming updates (as indicated by Oz in his statement above) or opt to combine it with their own fixes (depending on the nature & scope of the latter).

Future “STORM Project Viewer” Release

There are a number of code contributions which have come via the Snowstorm route which have been queued awaiting a suitable release. These cover a range of additions to the viewer, and example of which is STORM-68 (As a Builder, I want that ability to set default permissions on creation of objects, clothing, scripts, notecards, etc.).

Commenting on STORM contributions in general, and in light of the forthcoming changes to the viewer release process, Oz said, “I’m trying to get all the storm issues merged up so that I can be ready to put out a project viewer as soon as the new viewer version manager is deployed.” Whether STORM-68 (which is apparently seen as “largely good to go”, although it may also require a server-side change), or the fixes for snapshot issues mentioned above will be among them remains to be seen. However, a “STORM” project viewer could well be adding even more features to the SL viewer in the near future.

Continue reading “SL projects update 24 (1): Viewer news – materials, SSB/A, deformer, snapshots” →

SL project news week 5 (2): servers, issues, viewer, SSB, deformer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments week 5

On Tuesday 29th January, the Main channel received the threaded region crossing code previously deployed to BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 4 – release notes.

On Wednesday 29th January, the following updates were deployed to the Release Candidate channels:

  • BlueSteel received the server-side materials processing code – release notes
  • LeTigre received the maint-server project originally deployed to Magnum in week 3. This deployment includes the bug fix for the places / search indexing issue which occurred following the original deployment of the code to Magnum – release notes
  • Magnum received a further update to the interest list code deployed in week 4, with fixes intended to deal with issues of high packet loss – release notes.

Reported Issues

Main Channel

A number of initial problems were reported  in the forum discussion thread, Several of which  appeared to be related to initial region caching / capabilities problems which lead to some strange initial experiences for users, ranging from teleport failures / potential viewer crashes on region crossings (physical or teleport) and  out-of-range controlled flight (i.e. avatars could continue to fly under full control when apparently at coordinates well outside the region (e.g. 320, 128, 75). These issues seem to cease once regions were correctly caching following a (protracted) restart period.

There were also some reports in the forum discussion thread that use of the estate tools to eject / teleport home / ban an avatar can lead to a region cross. However, as the reports appear to be the same / similar to previously filed SEC JIRA (SEC-1215 and SEC-1204, neither of which are open to public viewing), and may be an isolated series of incidents (others are not reporting the same problems, so they have not been repro’d outside of the affected region), there is a reluctance within LL to attribute them directly to the region crossing code.

Magnum RC (Interest List Code)

The Interest List Code problem relates to the use of bots. Originally, it had been hoped that one of the fixes deployed this week would correct the issue; however this has not entirely been the case.

Following further investigation by Latif Khalifa and Andrew Linden, an explanation of the problem is provided in the deployment forum thread. The issue has its routes in the fact that the Second Life UDP protocol requires an acknowledgement (or “ACK”) for all messages sent to the viewer. However, rather than sending a distinct “message received” back to the server for each packet received, certain types of bot append the acknowledgement to other outgoing messages. A bug in the interest list code means these appended ACKs aren’t read. This results in original data been regarded as a packet loss, so it is repeatedly re-sent to the viewer controlling the bot, leading to the huge increases of bandwidth which have been witnessed. Andrew is currently working on a fix for this issue.

Deployments for Week 6

There is currently no clear news on deployment plans for the week commencing Monday 4th February. Currently, it appears that the main-server release re-deployed to LeTigre will most likely be promoted to the Main channel.

SL Viewer Updates

Issues relating to the beta viewer 3.4.5 code have been resolved, and an updated beta viewer (3.4.5.269698), was released on Thursday January 31st – see the release notes for updates. Also released on the 31st was a new version of the CHUI development viewer, 2.4.6.269797. The SL development viewer rolled to 3.4.6.703 on Wednesday January 30th.

An interesting issue has been noted recently by those using multiple versions of the SL viewer. When swapping between more recent versions of the SL development viewer and older versions of the code base, toolbar buttons can vanish from the viewer’s UI. The exact cause is unclear, and the problem appears intermittent (I’ve personally only encountered it once jumping between project and release versions of the viewer).

Mesh Deformer Project Viewer

Sovereign Engineer assisted with code merges for the parametric deformer project viewer with the result that the code is now merged-up to the 3.4.4 codebase with the latest release of the mesh project viewer (3.4.4.269558) on January 29th. There are apparently no functional changes to the deformer itself.

The updated shape selection options for mesh clothing and human shapes in the mesh upload floater
The mesh deformer project viewer has now been merged-up to the 3.4.4 viewer codebase. There are apparently no updates to the deformer itself with this release

This removes one of the three bottlenecks to the project as noted in the first part of this week’s reports. However, the issue of internal resources at the Lab remains a problem, although Oz Linden is attempting to address this and there may be further news in week 6.

Continue reading “SL project news week 5 (2): servers, issues, viewer, SSB, deformer” →

SL project news: week 5 (1): servers, viewer, deformer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments Week 5

There are a full set of deployments this week, Main channel and RCs.

On Tuesday 29th January, the Main channel received the threaded region crossing code deployed to BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 4. This project makes sim performance smoother when objects and avatars cross between regions. Please refer to the release notes for further information.

On Wednesday 29th January, the Release Candidate channels should receive the following deployments:

  • BlueSteel should receive the server-side materials processing code. This code will require a a project viewer in order to be used, As reported in week 4, there is no definitive timeframe as to when a viewer is liable to be available, but it would be reasonable to expect something in the next few weeks (possibly sooner) – release notes
  • LeTigre should receive the maint-server project originally deployed to Magnum in week 3. This deployment includes the bug fix for the places / search indexing issue which occurred following the original deployment of the code to Magnum – release notes
  • Magnum will receive a further update to the interest list code deployed in week 4. This update addresses high packet loss problems, leading to issues such as not seeing avatars or objects in-world, specifically:
    • A fix for bots which do not specify a valid draw distance in order to prevent them downloading huge amounts of unwanted data
    • A fix to keep ObjectUpdate packets within an ethernet MTU of 1500
    • Release notes.

Please check with the forum discussion thread for these deployments to keep abreast of updates / changes / issues.

Materials processing: server-side code to go to BluseSteel on Wednesday 30th January - but no project viewer yet
Materials processing: server-side code to go to BlueSteel on Wednesday 30th January – but no project viewer yet

SL Viewer News

Problems remain with the beta viewer code, but it is hoped a new beta will be appearing shortly. In te meantime, Kelly Linden has committed the viewer-side code for extending the maximum avatar animation length from 30 seconds to 60 seconds (MAINT-1492). This should be appearing in the 3.4.5 beta viewer, and should also be appearing in TPVs in the near future.

Mesh Deformer

Delays continue with the mesh deformer, which can be summarised as:

  • The Lab has limited internal resources for testing it – although attempts are being made to address this
  • There is concern that there is no clear way for a designer and a user to be sure that they are using the same avatar base model – and if they are not, then the deformer will very likely make things worse. While there are some provisions within the current deformer for the base model to be taken into consideration, there is apparently concern that it may not be sufficient
  • The project veiewer code is now significantly behind the current viewer release, although work is underway to merge it up (and I received a report that this has been done while preparing this update).

A further potential issue in progressing the deformer  – as Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz), who wrote the original code points out – is there are a lot of expectations that the deformer will do a lot of things which were not in the original specification (or indeed, the code as originally written). Some of this scope creep has resulted in further updates to the code from other contributors. However, there appear to be concerns that if the Lab prematurely release if, there will be a risk that a) it breaks existing content, b) it is viewed as not addressing problems correctly.

This latter aspect was also commented upon by Oz Linden, when speaking Open-source Development meeting on Monday 28th January. He said, “We are often (and frequently with justification) accused of throwing things out that are not really finished enough… indeed, the lack of some solution for the problem the deformer is trying to solve is one of the more prominent recent examples, but I don’t want to make the situation even worse by putting out a ‘solution’ that turns out not to solve enough of the problem and/or creates bigger ones down the road.”

Avatar Baking (SSB)

A set of code updates for the viewer are in progress. However, an issue with the Mac build means they have not been pushed as an update to the project viewer as yet. It is hoped that the updates will reach all three versions of the viewer (Windows, Linux and Mac) once the Mac build problem has been resolved.

SL project news: week 2 (3): server, mesh and materials

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – week 2

As noted in the update to part 2 of this week’s report, the planned deployment of two new releases to the RC channels didn’t go as anticipated. Originally, it had been intended that BlueSteel and LeTigre would received the new threaded region crossing code while Magnum would receive Andrew Linden’s interest list code improvements.

Interest List Deployment Cancellation

The interest list deployment was cancelled after the 11th hour discovery of some bugs with the code. Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday 10th January, Maestro Linden described the main issues as – ironically – being connected with region crossings, and with object updates.

In the first, anyone crossing between regions several times in a vehicle would experience all of their non-rigged attachments disappearing from their world view, with the viewer itself eventually physically detaching them. Not only did this cause confusion as to what was happening with attachments for those experiencing the issue, it also resulted in some avatars ending up naked following a relog.

Interest listcode: bugs led to deployment cancellation on Wednesday 9th January
Interest list code: bugs led to deployment cancellation on Wednesday 9th January

The second problem was slightly more complicated, if potentially more rare. In it, if User A had an object on the ground and User B looked at then turned their camera away such that the object was no longer on their screen, User A could then wear the object as an attachment and teleport away; however, when User B subsequently turned their camera back to where the object had been, they would still see it on the ground despite the fact it had been taken away. What happened if User A (now wearing the object) teleported back to User B wasn’t actually tested.

As a result of both of these issues and the cancellation of the interest list deployment, Magnum received the same region crossing package as intended for BlueSteel and LeTigre.

Region Crossing Code Issues

However, the bad news did not end there, as Maestro Linden explained, “After a few hours, we saw that the [region/sim] crash rate was way too high.” As a result, the threaded region crossing code was disabled via a configuration change to the servers without the need to rollback the release. Once this had happened, region crash rates returned to “normal” levels. In all the new region crossing code was active for around five hours before being disabled once more.

Analysis of the crash rate revealed it to be linked to avatars crossing to / from heavily scripted regions. While the new code was extensively tested on Aditi, the regions there were not excessively loaded with scripts during testing, and so the problem did not manifest. However, subsequent testing with the test regions running heavy script loads did result in them also crashing, confirming the problem.

At the time of writing, Kelly Linden believes he has a fix for the issue; if so, it should hopefully find its way to the RC channels in week 3, commencing Monday 14th January.

Continue reading “SL project news: week 2 (3): server, mesh and materials” →

SL project news: week 51

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments week 51

Tuesday 18th December saw the Main Release channel get the maint-server release as deployed to Magnum in week 50, as Maestro Linden indicated might be the case during the Server Beta meeting on the 13th December. There have been some reports of teleport issues following the deployment, but these are thought to be a network-side issue, rather than a problem with the server code itself.

Release notes.

All three RC channels should be receiving the same package on Wednesday 19th December, 2012 which is also the Magnum deployment from week 50, with a single additional bug fix.

Release notes (for Magnum, but applicable to all three RC channels)

Forum thread for the deployments.

This is the last set of server-side deployments for 2012.

A low-key Simulator User Group meeting on 18th December, the last for 2012
A low-key Simulator User Group meeting on 18th December, the last for 2012

SL Viewer Updates

The release version of the official SL viewer rolled to the 3.4.3 code on Tuesday 18th December, with the release of 3.4.3.268262. Among a range of updates, this release include the major GPU table updates seen in recent beta viewer releases, the additional graphics settings and the tiling fix for high-resolution snapshot (MAINT-638). This release also sees the return of JIRA numbers to the release notes, matching the recent beta viewer release notes update.

The new "intermediary" graphics settings intended to better represent the capabilities of different GPU classes
The new “intermediary” graphics settings intended to better represent the default SL capabilities of different GPU classes

The beta viewer should be moving to the 3.4.4 code with the next release, although it is not clear whether this will be before or after the holiday period.

Interest List Update

Andrew Linden has been tweaking and optimising his Interest list code. The first phase of the new interest list code is aimed at reducing the amount of information being sent to the viewer by the server. Speaking at the Simulator User Group meeting on the 18th December, Andrew commented, “Last week I managed to find an optimisation opportunity in my Interest List project, which shaves a few hundred usec off of some cases where there are a lot of Full Object Updates. So this would translate to better server FPS when in large groups of avatars or when in the presence of stuff that is generating lots of full updates.”

As I reported last time, object updates take three forms, Full, Terse and Delete. Full updates are generated when an object is seen for the first time, or which is undergoing a constant change in appearance / position. Terse updates are sent only when an object changes its appearance / position. Under the current Interest list system, both types of update are sent to the viewer, regardless as to where the viewer actually needs to process them. A primary part of Andrew’s work has been reworking the code so that updates – particularly terse updates – are only sent to the viewer when the object generating them is in the camera’s field-of view. This new optimisation work should further help reduce the number of updates being sent to the viewer regardless as to whether or not it has to process them.

Continue reading “SL project news: week 51” →

SL project news week 48/1: server and beta, viewer, maps and memory

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments

After indications from LL that there may not be a Main channel deployment on Tuesday 27th November, restart commenced as the deployment made to the RC channels last week went ahead as per the usual schedule.

Wednesday 28th November should see the three main RC channels updated as follows:

  • BlueSteel and LeTigre: should receive a maint-server project.  There are a few new flags for the LSL function llGetObjectDetails(), but the most important changes are some fixes for physics and mesh-based crash modes – see the server release notes
  • Magnum should receive the say package, with additional stability improvement changes – see the Magnum server release notes.

As usual there is a forum thread for the week’s server deployments.

Viewer News

Release Viewer

The 3.4.2 viewer code finally reached the release (production) version of the LL viewer with the release of 3.4.2.267137 on Monday 26th November, which I briefly reviewed here.

Beta Viewer

The beta viewer, now cleared of the crash issue bottleneck, moved rapidly through the 3.4.2 code base prior to Thanksgiving in the US, as previously reported in the news updates, and then reached 3.4.3 with the surprise release of 3.4.3.267135 during Thanksgiving week, after it had been indicated there would be no viewer releases during the week due to decreased support staff availability during the long weekend period. As reported last week, this release includes the first phase of Monty Linden’s HTTP texture fetch project, which should see people experiencing significantly faster texture rezzing when in-world.

CHUI Viewer

The CHUI – the Communications Hub User Interface – project viewer is due to go through another couple of iterations before moving towards a development / beta viewer code merge. There has already been one update since the project viewer, which is aimed at improving the capabilities and reliability of in-world text and Voice conversations, first appeared.

CHUI: potentially a couple more iterations to come

While he has not followed the project first-hand, Oz Linden believes CHUI to be nearing a “feature complete” status. The advice is that if you haven’t tried it out and wish to give feedback, now is the time to do so.

Mesh Deformer

Nalates Urriah provides an update on some of the ongoing work around the mesh deformer. In the meantime, speaking at the Open Development User Group meeting on Monday the 26th November, Oz linden responded to a question from White Rabbit as to what garments are still required for testing by saying, “That’s a great question. I’m setting up a meeting with the people responsible for avatars to try to get a proper acceptance test defined for both that and STORM-1800.” STORM-1800 relates to the vertex weights of the default avatar character mesh.

While Oz didn’t specify a date for the meeting, those with a direct interest in either supplying mesh clothing for testing or in the JIRA should be hearing from him in the near future on the meeting details.

Continue reading “SL project news week 48/1: server and beta, viewer, maps and memory” →