SL Viewer Progress Week 20

Lots of confusion and server problems this last week. New code being merged into the servers caused problems. For viewers the result has been problems and things not working. If you aren’t checking the SL Grid Status, you can’t tell if it is the viewer or the grid. Things are calming down and work is resuming on the viewer.

Region WindLight

More work has been done on getting controls built for setting a region’s Windlight values. The control dialogs are being arranged this week. Once that is done we’ll get a project viewer for testing. Of course, you can only test it if you have a region you manage (estate manager). If you are a region manager and willing to test the feature, get in touch with Oz Linden.

Oz expects the server side code to be on the grid by the time the Project Viewer Rolls out. So, I think we are talking a week or two…

Then we’ll see if the TPV’s add it in, probably. I’m curious if the controls will work with OpenSim grids that are currently using LightShare?

This is going to be a hard one to get integrated across OpenSim and SL. In the OpenSim worlds LightShare is programmable from scripts. So, via a script it is possible to have foggy mornings and sunny afternoons. That feature is not even on SL’s road map.

GPU Table Updates

This is about the file in the viewer that has settings based on GPU’s (video cards – Graphics Processing Unit) that the viewer uses on first start up. The settings have been out of date for some time. It has been updated, but getting it complete is a bigger task.

Display Names

There are still some problems with Display Names. In the viewer we see delays in names and images filling in. This is a server side issue. It is causing other problems in groups. Try opening a new group and jumping into the group’s chat. It is likely to time out and fail to open correctly and thus your chat will bounce off. A work-around may be to open the group, wait a bit, close and reopen. Hopefully the Display Name cache will supply names on the second open and allow group chat to open without a time out. I’m speculating.

Chat

You may remember this was a big setback for the Lindens and residents. The plan for XMPP to solve all the chat problems did not work out as hoped. However, word is the Chat team is making progress. Nothing is out for testing, so residents are still on hold.

User Interface

More work is being done on the user interface. I find it odd that View Evolution team doesn’t know what is being done, but that is what Oz Linden tells us. New user interface stuff in SLV2 is always welcome. I’m hoping things are becoming more modular.

Group Permissions on Parcels

See VWR-25525 – Improvements to handling of user group permissions on parcels – This one is on the list but it is a ways down and unlikely to any activity soon.

Multiline Comments in LSL

There is a feature request to add multiline comments to SL scripts. This is one of the things I would like to see. It is unclear if they work and just don’t highlight or they don’t work.

Ruthed Avatars

If you don’t know, Ruth is the name for the default avatar in SL. Since the introduction of Enhanced Avatar Physics residents are seeing inter-viewer problems. Phoenix users see SLV2 users as Ruth avatars, Ruthed. SLV2 users see Phoenix users as Ruthed.

See: VWR-25479 Avatar physics causing broken shapes on other viewers until they clear cache

Third Party Viewer (TPV) Developers are fixing the problem. Clearing the cache may not solve the problem.

Also, there is a problem with avatars going transparent. Avatar Physics (AP) caused this at one point in the SLV2. It has since been fixed. So, this is more common in TPV’s.

Phoenix is planning to add AP. That would remove the problem if transparent AV’s from Phoenix, but would trigger the problem in other viewers. So, we are likely to see this problem around until all the TPV’s get updated.

Summary

Work continues and viewers get better. 🙂

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