Tag: Simulator User Group 2022

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 1st, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

• On Tuesday, November 1st, the Main SLS and Events channels were restarted without any simulator update being deployed leaving them on simulator version 575585.
• On Wednesday, November 2nd. simhosts on the RC channels will be updated with simulator release 576126, comprising the new Linkset Data capability (see below for more).

Available Official Viewers

No changes to the current set of official viewers at the start o the week, leaving the list as:

• Release viewer: version 6.6.5.575749 – formerly the Maintenance M RC viewer –  promoted October 26.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  issued on October 12.
  • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Linkset Data (LSD)

• Linkset Data is a new collection of script functions and one optional event that reads and writes key-value-pairs to a small 64kb table of data that is part of a root object.
• It works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but:
  • It does not require an underpinning experience – the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data.
  • Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature.
• Important Note for the initial deployment:
  • Like all scripts containing new LSL functions, scripts running LinksetData* calls will only run on regions running version 2022-10-27.576126 or newer (so only the RC channels to start with).
  • However unlike some other functions if you move an object containing Linkset Data (or teleport wearing an object containing Linkset Data) from a region that supports the capability to a region that does not support it, all Linkset Data stored with the object will be lost, even if you go back to a region that supports the feature.
  • This limitation will no longer exist once the back-end support for the capability has been deployed to all regions on the Main grid.

llLinkPlaySound and Associated Functions

• llLinkPlaySound together with llLinkStopSound llLinkAdjustSoundVolume and llLinkSoundRange are new LSL functions that are described as “coming soon”, and which allow sounds in child prims of a linkset to be played without the need for a supporting script.
  • Additional related functions might be considered if subject to a Jira feature request.
• This is something that has been requested by content creators (particular vehicle creators) for a good number of years.
• Flags included will be SOUND_LOOP, SOUND_PLAY, SOUND_SYNCH and SOUND_TRIGGER, and will be used to replace the llPlay/Loop functions.
• Other sound restrictions within linkset remain unchanged.
• The announcement spurred an extended discussion on the SL sound system as a whole (including pre-loading sounds), as well as options for the new functions, through the first two-thirds of the meeting – please refer to the video.
• I’ll have more on the link sounds functions as and when LL have documentation on them and are ready to start deploying them.

In Brief

• For a full (and maintained!) list of LSL functions,  please refer to the official wiki page LSL_Functions.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 25th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

• On Tuesday, October 25th, the Main SLS and Events channels were restarted without any simulator update being deployed.
• On Wednesday, October 26th, the simhosts on the RC channels were to be updated with the new Linkset Data capability.
  • This feature works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data. Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature.
    • Further information can be found in the SL Wiki.
    • The capability can also be discussed in the SL forums.
  • However, a late-breaking issue revealed by the Lab’s QA team means that the deployment mat not take place until week #44 (commencing, Monday, October 31st).
  • If delayed, this potentially allows a further week for additional updates to the capability.
  • I will have a special Guest Article by Neobokrug Elytis explaining this new capability and its significance after the deployment has been made.

Available Official Viewers

On Tuesday, October 25th, Linden Lab release the Maintenance N RC viewer, version 6.6.6.575990. This is an urgent fix for transparency “alpha” blending issues. In cases of many layers of textures that included transparencies, this would cause some of the lower layers to not render at all.

The remaining official viewer pipelines stay as follows:

• Release viewer: version 6.6.5.575749 – formerly the Maintenance M RC viewer –  promoted October 20.
• Release channel cohorts :
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  issued on October 12.
  • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Script Compilers

• Rider Linden raised the question about removing the LSO bytecode compiler (non-Mono), or forcing all compilers to use Mono.
• This would not prevent compiled LSO scripts from running using the LSO VM, it would just prevent further scripts being compiled outside of the IL → Mono compiler.
• The main reason for considering this approach would make it much easier for LL to expand LSL without having to drag the old version along.
• Currently, this is an idea the Lab is considering – not something being actively pursued; but based n the feedback from the meeting, it may become an active project – if so, the Lab will make clear what is being done in advance through the forums and seek broader feedback from creators / scripters., and proving the LSO runtime remains in place, as noted above.

In Brief

• BUG-232792 “llLinksetData batch notifications” has been raised and is awaiting formal review by the Lab at the time of writing. This would only be implemented once the upcoming LSD capability has been deployed.
• There was a general question on the DMCA process, which actually falls outside the scope of the SUG meeting.
  • A  problem here is that with the suspension of the Governance User Group meetings, there is no public forum where issues relating to content theft / the DMCA process can be directly discussed with members of the Governance Team.
• BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – LL believe that have a “handle” on the where the issue is originating, but there has been no time to take a deep dive into the actual cause as yet

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 18th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

• On Tuesday, October 18th, the Main SLS and Events channels were updated with server release 575585.
  • This release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.
  • In addition, a slight change to the simulator code may help with the issue of people’s on-line / off-line status not being properly reported. It  is not an actual fix for the problem, but LL would like feedback as to whether people are seeing an improvement. See : BUG-232037 for more information on the issue.
• On Wednesday, October 19th, the simhosts on the RC channels will be restarted but remain on simulator release 575585.

Available Official Viewers

• Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  October 12.
  • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Local KVP / “Linkset Data”

From the server deployment thread:

We have a new feature build on Aditi for a new feature called Linkset Data. This feature works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data. Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature. For more details, see the in-progress wiki pages https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Linkset_Data. You can try out the new LSL functions related to this feature at the following Aditi Mainland regions:

• Blake Sea – Arabian ; Blake Sea – Atlantic ; Blake Sea – Beagle ; Blake Sea – Binnacle ; Blake Sea – Black ; Gothlauth ; Jigglypuff ; Mauve ; Moonberry ; Sapas ; Smithereens

We’re looking for feedback on this new feature including bugs and input on anything that might be missing or not work the way you’d expect. Please file a BUG Jira in all of those cases

This work is currently with the Lab’s QA team, and if cleared, could be a part of an RC channel deployment in week #43 (commencing Monday, October 24th, 2022.

These upcoming release sparked a conversation on data storage and access – please refer to the video for details.

In Brief

• BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – LL believe that have a “handle” on the where the issue is originating, but there has been no time to take a deep dive into the actual cause as yet.
• Further discussion on making multi-region crossings by vehicle more robust.
• A general discussion on lighting.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 11th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

• On Tuesday, October 11th, the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921.
• On Wednesday, October 12th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive simulator release 575585.
  • This release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.
  • In addition, a slight change to the simulator code may help with the issue of people’s on-line / off-line status not being properly reported. It  is not an actual fix for the problem, but LL would like feedback as to whether people are seeing an improvement. See : BUG-232037 for more information on the issue.

Available Official Viewers

• Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Local KVP / “Linkset Data”

From the server deployment thread:

Coming Soon. We have a new feature build on Aditi for a feature tentatively called Local KVP. This feature works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data. Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature. For more details, see the in-progress wiki pages [COMING SOON]. You can try out the new LSL functions related to this feature at the following Aditi Mainland regions:

• Blake Sea – Arabian; Blake Sea – Atlantic; Blake Sea – Beagle; Blake Sea – Binnacle; Blake Sea – Black; Gothlauth; Jigglypuff; Mauve; Moonberry: Sapas; Smithereens

We’re looking for feedback on this new feature including bugs and input on anything that might be missing or not work the way you’d expect. Please file a BUG Jira in all of those cases

To the above, Rider Linden added:

The data is stored on the root prim of a linkset and if you link two prims together (each containing LinksetData it will migrate the new non-root’s data up to the the root). The data is accessible to any script running in the linkset [but] it is not visible at all from outside the linkset.

This functionality was the focus of the majority of the meeting, with questions and suggestions coming from those attending. To avoid confusion through summarising questions / suggestions and replies, please refer to the video below, and also see also this forum thread.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 4th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

At  the time of writing, there was no published deployment plan for the week.

• On Tuesday, October 4th, the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921.
• On Wednesday, October 5th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive simulator release 575421, which did not have an release notes available at the time of writing
  • This is the release from week #39, which was ultimately postponed as a result of an 11th hour bug showing up in QA testing.
  • These release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.

Available Official Viewers

The Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer updated to version 6.6.5.575378, on October 4th.

The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains as:

• Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Experience KVP Change

Rider Linden offered a heads-up on a forthcoming change to Experience Key Value Pairs (KVP), which can be used to store large amounts of data related to an experience in-world, and make them accessible anywhere, any time, within the experience. Rider described the changes thus:

We are doing some work on the Experience KVP. The new tech that we are using doesn’t let us easily monitor the number of bytes that have been used be any particular experience. SO the proposal that is on the table is that we change the limit to a number of keys [and]:

• • A field would be tacked on to the end of llCountKeysKeyValue() that would be the allotted number of keys.

  • llDataSizeKeyValue would be changed to return the number_of_keys*4096 (which is the maximum size of the value that a key can store.

– Rider Linden

This sparked a discussion, and those who use experiences – or use the KVP table in an experience for any form of data storage, should refer to the video [29:21-end] in order to gain the full context of the proposed change and the discussion.

In Brief

• BUG-232037 – “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” has been a bone of contention for many for the last few months, Commenting on the issue, Rider linden there are at least a couple of points in back-end communications where the problem might occur, but it will take time to properly diagnose.
• Viewer-side: as noted in recent TPV Developer meeting summaries, there is a lot of work going on on the viewer build side of things (move to github for repositories, tool and library updates, etc. Whilst not strictly a part of the SUG meeting, Signal Linden wanted to get a couple of points out for viewer devs to note. One of these points relates to 3rd party code contributions to LL, the other on a library location under the new github structure:

So, some minor early notes wrt to opensource development. We are reviewing our contributor license agreement (CLA) and the process for collecting signatures. Ideally, I’d like for the CLA to be able to be signed in PRs on github. This will take some work with legal, and I don’t have anything definitive yet 🙂

Also, if you are not on the opensource-dev mailing list, the llsd python serialization library has been moved to its own repository; https://github.com/secondlife/python-llsd We are also starting to finally get the PyPI packages updated for autobuild.

– Signal Linden

 

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, September 20th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

At  the time of writing, there was no published deployment plan for the week.

• On Tuesday, September 27th, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921,  comprising the fixes from release 574611 + BUG-232593 “Mesh physics shapes changing unexpectedly when rezzed on a 574611 sim”, introduced with that update.
• On Wednesday, September 28th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive an update containing two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.

Available Official Viewers

No changes to mark the start of the week, leaving the official viewer pipelines as:

• Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – NEW.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
  • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.

In Brief

• Bugger all of note discussed as this was a “solstice party” and it was bloody hard enough just confirming RC server deployment details.