Second Life News 2013-14

We are a little light on news in Second Life™. The server updates are toward the end. I think to some extent things are hung up with CHUI – Chat Hub User Interface. There are some problems in the code. The Lindens are thinking one more Beta version of the CHUI Viewer is going to be needed before they can complete it. I suspect we will see that this week.

They have been fixing things;

  • CHUI-799 FIXED Notification is not given to user when they select only friends and groups can IM me
  • CHUI-855 FIXED Text entry bar auto expand does not resize
  • CHUI-896 FIXED Line flashing and FUI button flashing not working correctly for CHUI notifications
  • CHUI-903 FIXED Don’t show toasts if Session floater is torn-off and in focus.
  • CHUI-905 Fixed Viewer crashes while using Insert keyboard key in chat

They are behind in fixes. Plus a number of problems related to CHUI are not being reported in CHUIBUG. They are being reported in other areas, like the general BUG section.

CHUIBUG 30 Day Report

CHUIBUG 30 Day Report

Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift VR - Conversation on Facebook

Oculus Rift VR – Conversation on Facebook

A question came about whether anyone at Linden Lab™ is working on integrating Oculus Rift. At the level of Lindens I can talk with, nothing is known. But, over on Facebook (Thanks to Drax for telling me) there is a comment from Rod Humble about contacting the Oculus Rift people.

So, something is going on and there is interest on the Lab’s side. Whether this means someone gets assigned to work on the project is another matter.

While I think this could be kinda neat, I can’t imagine using the Oculus VR and doing the 360 spin I usually make when TP’ing into a new region…

LEAP Motion

This is a new form of device control that uses the hands in new ways. Simon Linden started integrating LEAP motion control as a side project. Now he is busy with Server Side Appearance (formerly Avatar Baking) and has no time to work on it.

Oz Linden thinks if an open source developer would like to take over the project it would be great.

Virtual Ecosystem

Virtual Eco System - Early Beta

Virtual Eco System – Early Beta

TheBlack Box (that is an avatar name, if you don’t know, has a virtual ecosystem thing that uses Artificial Intelligence with Pathfinding. It is an experimental project in early stages of development. So, you won’t find it in a store or the Market Place.  You can contact TheBlack Box to get the free full perm early release. However, the updater is no-mod and no-transfer. So, get your copy from TheBlack Box.

I’m not sure what all is involved. You can see what is included in the package. I’m already doing more things than I can keep up with. So, I have not taken time to play with it. But, it sounds fun.

Server Side Appearance

The name has changed a bit. Server Side Avatar Baking has fallen from favor. But, there was apparently some talk within the Lab of SSA going into Beta on Monday (4/1). That would made for mass confusion.

The viewer side of the SSA changeover has to roll to most of the viewers before the Lab is willing roll out the server side of the change. There are some minor problems when one moves from an SSA enabled region to a non-SSA capable region. One ends up with a gray avatar when moving between those types of regions. Pressing rebake (Ctrl-Alt-R) fixes the problem, so it is not a catastrophe.

The Lab is going to enable SSA on a few regions for testing while the viewer rollout is in progress. So, we can test the feature. But, most will not notice a change as the viewers change over.

This change will cripple old viewers. Phoenix, SL 1.23, and other viewers that are not updated will not be able to render avatars.

The Firestorm people tell us a large number of people are still using Phoenix. When SSA rolls out those people will have to change viewers. It will be interesting to see how many are caught by surprise.

There seems to be some problem with corruption of the Current Outfit Folder (COF). SSA is dependent on the COF to render the avatar. So, anyone with a corrupted COF is going to have a problem. I’m not sure who is running into that problem…

Land Impact Costs

It seems there is a group of people that do not understand how to make mesh things that have low Land Impact (LI), They want the Lab to change the LI costs of mesh, prims, and sculpties. I doubt that is going to happen. All the Lab will say is no one is working on a project that would adjust LI costs.

Rigging to Collision Bones

Several people have figured out how to weight clothes and replacement avatars to the collision bones. That allows the item to adjust to some size changes not otherwise possible.

This subject comes up every now and then. The Lab’s position is simply they do not support it. They have no objection to people using the method. But, if at some future time they need to change behavior of collision bones or inadvertently change the behavior for any reason, they will and will not consider content dependent on current behavior a reason not to make changes. Such a break will not be seen as a bug or regression to be fixed. That means they will break the content if needed.  So, be smart avoid using the feature or buying things that use the process.

Height Offset

There are some problems that seem to have popped up with some recent changes needed for SSA. Tiny and giant avatars are having positioning problems with sits. Nyx Linden says the problem is not resolved but there are some fixes on the way. I gather the fixes are not comprehensive and the Lab is considering what may be the best overall fix.

Main Channel

Tuesday we got the Interest List update that has been running on the Magnum channel. The Interest List changes will provide better sorting of objects the viewer wants to rez and render. This update fixes some of the problems we have seen when turning around, where previously rendered items have de-rendered. There is some type of recycling of update packets that I don’t understand. I get that it is build an update packet and then save and send it to other viewers as needed, which save packet build time.

Blue Steel & Le Tigre

These two channels will continue to run last week’s project with updates to include the main channel code and more bug fixes. This is the package that has the new Animation Overrider functions and a couple of other things.

Magnum

This channel gets a new package that has the HTTP update stuff to improve communications between your viewer and the server. HTTP Keep Alive is being implemented for the first time in SL’s life. This is expected to improve texture and mesh download speed. Some HTTP-Request scripting functions will be able to use the Keep Alives too.

Mesh and texture downloads will have better information embedded to improve caching and to give the viewer more information so it can more quickly handle them…

4 thoughts on “Second Life News 2013-14

  1. People wouldn’t be bothering with collision bone rigging if the Lab had gotten off it’s ass and let Karl’s deformer get out there.

    • I mostly agree with you. But, when the Lab did finally ask for help from the community they didn’t get it. Plus the community in a large part told Oz it was not ready. I gather from Oz there were enough people saying not ready that is became a concern. Since those people were mostly clothes and avatar designers, He listened.

      So, don’t think this is all on the Lab.

      • What annoys me most is that the clothing designers (a small percentage of SL’s population) are discouraging LL from progressing farther, it is the customers who are left with the current messed up situation with mesh clothing that simply does not fit!

        I am still not buying mesh clothing until it works.

        • To some extent you are right about the designers delaying things. Also, those that wanted it didn’t follow through with test clothes… I don’t mean Max.

          I am at the point I’ve stopped getting mesh demo clothes. If it says mesh on it, I pass. They sure look nice in the photos. But, wearing them I see way too many flaws.

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