Tag: Server Updates

2024 SL SUG meetings week #2 summary: Jira end-of-road

Posted on by Inara Pey
Borkum, November 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 9th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • No scheduled deployments, just region restarts.
  • It is hoped the issues with the Fall Colours simulator update (e.g. collision sounds reverberating) have now been addressed, and that these fixes will be deployed across all simulator RCs during week #3.
  • A further simulator update – Gingerbread – will be following thereafter.

Viewer Updates

  • The glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, version 7.1.2.7215179142 issued December 15th, 2023 and featuring numerous bug fixes and improvements (including haze / fog affecting point lights), was promoted to de facto release status on Monday, January 8th, 2024.
  • The Maintenance-W RC viewer comprising bug and crash fixes was updated to version 7.1.3.7453541295 on January 9th, 2024.

The rest of the official viewers currently in the pipeline remain as follows

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

Jira End-of-Road

  • While yet to be formally announced, as a result of Atlassian changing their licensing model and making it prohibitively expensive for Linden Lab to continue using Jira as  reporting tool open to all users, the decision has been taken to replace Jira as a the bug reporting / featuring request filing toll for Second Life.
  • In the very near future, Jira will be replaced by a two-pronged approach:
    • Bug reports will be taken directly though Github.
    • General feedback and feature requests will be made via Canny, from where they will be imported by the Lab as GitHub issues for the purposes of internal tracking.
  • Work is already underway internally to move existing open and incoming Jira tickets to Github, and it is anticipated that the switch-over to using Canny as well as Github will be made very soon. An official blog post on the switch-over is expected to be made either later this week or early in week #3.
  • The use of Canny has already drawn some strong negative feedback from technical users due to several limitation within the service as it has been developed. These concerns have been noted by LL, who are also providing feedback to the Canny developers.
  • However, it was noted that an advantage with Canny is that the Second Life environment there allows users to log-in to it using their SL credentials (just as is currently the case with Jira). However, Github doe not allow this, but requires uses to have dedicated accounts – with the concern this would like be seen as a objectionable requirement by many SL users.

Scripted Camera Control Updates

  • Leviathan Linden has been working on some LSL updates for camera control, which are expected to be deployed with the Gingerbread update in the next few weeks. These are:
    • float llGetCameraAspect(): returns aspect ratio as known to the camera on the server. Basically width/height of SL window.
    • float llGetCameraFOV(): returns “field of view” of the camera as known to the server, in radians. Is a measure of angle of view of the vertical span of the window.
    • vector llWorldPosToHUD(vector world_pos): returns HUD position that maps to the world-pos as seen by current camera as known by server. HUD attachment point doesn’t matter: the server figures it out.
    • string llComputeHash(string message, string algorithm): returns hash digest of message using the algorithm, without any “nonce salt” as in llMD5String(). Supported algorithms are: md5, md5_sha1, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512.
  • Concerns were raised over the float llGetCameraAspect() being used to “fingerprint” users (e.g. whether two accounts are being used by the same user) through returned information on window size & resolution. In response, it was pointed out the return is only the window aspect ration, which is regarded as more secure against such fingerprinting.

Game Control Update

  • Leviathan also encountered a bug in the game controller code he is developing which meant that sometimes bits could be lost in the button_edges argument supplied to the game_control event.
  • The fix for this has been a change to the game_control event signatures from game_control(key id, integer button_levels, integer button_edges, list axes) to game_control(key id, integer button_levels, list axes).
  • Thus, it will be the responsibility of scripters to compute button_levels as necessary. Scripters who want the edges will have to track a global variable previous_button_levels.

In Brief

  • Questions were asked about LL developing a “scripted UI”. These likely arose out people hearing second-hand some comments made at the first Content Creation User Group meeting. For fuller context, please see my notes from that meeting.
  • For all other topics, please refer to the video below.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #1 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Hamptons, November 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • No scheduled deployments, just region restarts.

Viewer Updates

The current official viewers list starts the year unchanged from where it saw out the old year.

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.1.7039128750, formerly the Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, issued December 1, promoted December 14 – displaying user-customized keybindings in chat – NO CHANGE.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.2.7213596294, December 18 – bug and crash fixes.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, version 7.1.2.7215179142 issued December 15 – numerous bug fixes and improvements.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

In Brief

  • A quiet meeting as a number of the engineering team are on extended vacation (so no Rider, Leviathan, et al).
  • LL are continuing to work on the issue of repeating collision sounds on the RC channel and the Fall Colors update (see:
  • BUG-234835 “Can hear Collisions “play” on RC channels”). This should have been reverted over the holiday period to minimise the annoyance, but no news on when an actual fix is likely to be deployed.
  • Simon Linden has been poking at the Avatar Appearance message, so that at some point soon it will get both a list of attachments as well as some info on pending attachments. He’s also tweaking ObjectUpdate for root prims so it will  include the number in the linkset.
  • A lot of general conversation on region crossings, PBR (and the issues being experienced by those on PBR-enabled viewers). Please refer to the video below for specifics.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #51 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nom Nom Café Library, November 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 19th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • No scheduled deployments, just region restarts.

Viewer Updates

On Monday, December 18th, the Maintenance-W RC viewer (bug and crash fixes) updated to version 7.1.2.7213596294.

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.1.7039128750, formerly the Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer (displaying user-customized keybindings in chat), issued December 1, promoted December 14.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, version 7.1.2.7215179142 issued December 15 – numerous bug fixes and improvements.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controllers Update

From Leviathan Linden:

I had a fresh working game_control viewer [on Github] on Wednesday [Dec 13]. There is an updated viewer that allows avatar control “Actions” to be translated into GameControl input. 
DaveP pointed out that game_control could be hijacked to supply midi input if the number of supported buttons was uncapped. Right now the game_control event is limited to 32 buttons because they are stored in a 32-bit mask. However, that would require button state to be represented in lists, which I had originally proposed, but received feedback saying scripters would prefer the bitwise masks –> much faster to process.

In Brief

  • Party week + No Change window, so not a lot discussed / little news.
  • Leviathan Linden has implemented llGetAspectRatio() for attachments, and is aiming to release it in the new year with the Gingerbread simulator update (likely mid-to-late January).
    • There are no parameters for the function, it just returns horizontal/vertical ratio float value if the scripted object is an attachment.
    • The item doesn’t need to be attached as HUD, any attachment point works.
  • The bug within the current Fall Colors simulator release (currently on all RC channels) which causes repetitive collision sounds has not been completely resolved. See BUG-234835 “Can hear Collisions “play” on RC channels”.
  • The first hour of the meeting focused on a general discussion on possible scripted updates for the SL camera (including whether or not some general camera improvements might be better handled viewer-side).
  • Please refer to the video below for the core meeting – which extended beyond the hour due to the live music; unfortunately, I had to depart for the physical world just after the first hour was up.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #50 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Subcutan Art Gallery: Japanese Garden (lower area) blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 12th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • Tuesday, December 12th: the SLS Main channel was re-started without any simulator updates being deployed.
  • Wednesday, December 13th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update should be expanded across all RC channels. This update includes llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, December 12th, the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, version 7.1.1.7173980941, was issued. Among the updates / fixes included are:

  • Fix: BUG-234706 “[GLTF] [PBR] Performance unstable / massive performance loss compared to default release”.
  • Fix: BUG-234740 “[PBR] [Windows] Scaled/Offset Textures Quality Degrades at Short Distance”.
  • Fix: BUG-234632 “[PBR] – Regression – Lossless compression normal map upload via GLTF asset is broken”.
  • Fix: BUG-234740 “[PBR] [Windows] Scaled/Offset Textures Quality Degrades at Short Distance”.
  • Improvement: “SL-20611 Haze has no effect on local lights”.
  • Update: 17 new Materials available via the Library.
  • Please refer to the release notes for the full list of fixes / updates / known issues for this release.

Other viewers in the pipe remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 6.6.17.6935636398, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controllers

From Leviathan Linden:

I’m trying to provide an updated viewer that allows for keyboard support: send game_control data even if you don’t have a game controller. I hope to have something available for download today, but just got the Mac version to build but it is missing some UI and I don’t know why yet.
What would be new in that game_control viewer are two things:
  1. The ability to map most avatar movement controls (e.g. push_forward, strafe_left, etc) that have keyboard bindings… to game_control axes and/or buttons.
  2. [A] small change where I negate the axis by default on the X-components of the joysticks on your controller. This to make it so that LEFT is in the positive direction [so] if you’ve already negated that channel in test scripts then you will need to remove your own negation.
What is NOT in the new viewer:
    • Remapping of controller inputs
    • Arbitrary keyboard mappings to game_control inputs — you can map the “Actions” of avatar movement/control that already have keyboard mappings… to game_control inputs.
    • Detection of odd game controller hardward — I still have a Thrustmaster HOTUS controller on order but it hasn’t arrived yet. I blame X-mas package traffic jams.

Combat Simulation

  • Rider Linden has published his outline document on improving SL’s combat capabilities, which can be found within the combat systems discussion thread on the forums, and is gaining good feedback on it.
  • This led to a general discussion on requirements / concerns over conflicts in trying to address multiple combat systems, managing Damage (and the potential for a “damage budget” / sliding scale of damage based on weaponry.
  • The new user group for combat systems should be starting up in the new year. For now, please refer to the meeting video for the general discussion, which starts around 18 minutes into the meeting and continues through until the end.

In Brief

  • Rider Linden continues to prove himself cool and hip – this week referencing Carl Reiner’s classic neo-noir mystery comedy film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. At least he didn’t get in T-R-U-B-I-L for doing so.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #49 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Castle Dracula, October 2023- blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 5th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • Tuesday, December 5th: the SLS Main channel was re-started without any simulator updates being deployed.
  • Wednesday, December 6th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update may be expanded across all RC channels from BlueSteel / Preflight. This update includes llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.
    • However, following its initial deployment in Week 48, “Fall Colours” was found to have bugs with collision sounds (e.g. transferring them across region boundaries and with being able to silence them), with the result that the sounds can be repeated multiple times (see: BUG-234757 “Repetitive Collision Sound?” and this forum thread). As a result, at the time of the meeting, LL were still discussing whether or not to consider these issues as “blockers” against the release being more widely deployed.
    • If the deployment to all RCs goes ahead in the next week or two, it will represent the last server deployment for 2023.

No Change Window

  • The end-of-year No change window for simulator and official viewer releases will come into effect on the week commencing Monday, December 18th, 2023 and will remain in place until Tuesday, December 2nd, 2024.
  • Linden Lab offices will be closed for all but emergency support from close of business Friday, December 22nd, 2023, and will re-open on January 2nd, 2024.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, December 5th, the Maintenance-W RC viewer updated to version 7.1.1.7088402585.

Other viewers in the pipe remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 6.6.17.6935636398, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controllers

  • Leviathan Linden has previously considered the idea of changing the signature of the LSL event to provide per-channel info (input, value) rather than all of the controller state (buttons masks + all axes). However, he has discovered that such an event system would make it difficult to handle multi-modal input: e.g. some_button + axis_state.
  • This is because the state of each input would arrive in different events, and the order or arrival would matter, with Leviathan noting what he already has in place would likely win out in the end, negating any changes.
  • Currently, he is trying to make it possible to supply game_control input with keyboard input, but without having to completely rewrite the keyboard mapping and other related UI.
  • The Gingerbread maintenance branch with the prototype game_control feature has been redeployed to the Beta grid, and can be found on the following Aditi regions: Aegis Island, Blake Sea – Turnbuckle, Cloud Sandbox 1, Cloud Sandbox 2, Firestorm Aerodrome, Gothlauth, Hona Lee Puff, Jigglypuff, Laefeon, LR151, LR 152, Mauve, Moonberry, Morris, SG2, and Smithereens.
  • A point to note here is that the game controller work does not currently support 3dConnexion SpaceNavigator Mouse many of us use for things like flycamming, photography, filming, etc., but he is promised not to break support for the SpaceNav functionality.

In Brief

  • Combat Updates:
    • Rider Linden has published his outline document on improving SL’s combat capabilities, which can be found within the combat systems discussion thread on the forums. Feedback is requested from users engaging in combat games in SL.
    • This lead to a discussion on combat capabilities and needs throughout the rest of the meeting – please refer to the video below.
  • A question was asked on fog and distance hazing, this is something the graphics team hope to implement within the on-going glTF project – see: 2023 week #46: SL CCUG meeting summary: PBR status & current release plan.
  • BUG-234598 “Avatar hit box rotating bug” has been accepted by LL, but is proving difficult to reproduce.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #48 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Witherwood Thicket, October 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 28th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.

Apologies for the lateness of this summary, RL is not playing nice at the moment.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • Tuesday, November 28th: support for PBR Materials was deployed to the SLS Main channel, making it grid-wide.
  • Wednesday, November 29th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update should be deployed to the BlueSteel RC. This will include llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.
  • “Fall Colours” is liable to be the last simulator update for 2023.

Viewer Updates

The glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.1.6894459864, dated November 17th, was promoted to de facto release status on November 28th, in line with the grid-wide deployment of PBR Materials.

Other viewers in the pipe remain as:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance X RC, version 6855926535, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 6.6.17.6935636398, November 21.
    • Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 6.6.17.6898288582, November 20.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controllers

  • The code remains under internal review at the Lab, particularly around the UI elements needed to support it in the viewer.
  • Runitai Linden has suggested seeing if it is possible to support a system where the scripter can specify custom input names, which show up in the UI with a select-and-toggle method of mapping game device inputs to those channels, as Leviathan Linden explained at the meeting:
Suppose you were making some custom game with very custom input names (e.g. not “Strafe” and “Jump”), like a Twerking game and you wanted “Wiggle”, “Waggle”, and “Bop” to be the names of your inputs. The scripter would be able to call something like… llGameControlMappings([“Wiggle”, GAME_CONTROL_AXIS_0, “Waggle”, GAME_CONTROL_AXIS_3, “Bop”, GAME_CONTROL_BUTTON_2]); The viewer would then get that info and be able to provide custom UI for setting those input names to the various axes or buttons on whatever device you happen to be using.

– Leviathan Linden describing a proposed custom button names for games controllers

  • This led to an extended discussion on game controller, mapping buttons, options and approaches.
  • Leviathan also noted the current version of the back-end support for games controller will be made available on a simulator channel on Aditi (the Beta grid) later in the week.

In Brief

  • The straw man document Rider Linden has been putting together on combat system improvements is now being circulated within the Lab for comments and feedback. Expect more probably in the new year.
  • The above, together with BUG-233210 “Third Person View With Mouselook Functionality”, led to a discussion on camera positions, remote vehicle control, etc., which in turn led to a broad conversation on camera placement options and camera control.
  • Region Crossings: no major update from Monty, who has been out of the office.
  • A mixed discussion on frame rates (including confusion between server-side frame rates and client FPS performance), region crossings co-habiting regions which are adjoining one another as a defined group on the same simhost server, and much else that was mostly user-side in terms of input. Please refer to the video below.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.