Wow, I pumped out 96 posts in the month of March. This is the third of may be 12 articles about 2015. – To find the collection of Year End Review articles look in the right-hand column and click the TAG: Annual Review.
March 2015 – 96 Articles
This month the Lab was working on rolling out AISv3. Problems were biting people as the transition was being made. Problems ranged from render fails to not being able rez from inventory.
「Hey Ho, Let’s Go」 – Taken in March 2015
March viewers were;
- RC Login Viewer version 3.7.25.298971 – This one promoted to main release in March.
- RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.26.299443
- RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.26.299845
- RC Experience Viewer version 3.8.0.299338
- Project Avatar Layer Limits Viewer – This was the start of the project to change how we use layers on the avatar. Basically it changes the limit of how many textures one can wear on a given layer and sets the total limit at 60.
- RC Hover Viewer version 3.7.26.299635 – The new HOVER Height feature made it to the main release viewer in March.
- RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.26.299443
- Project Importer Viewer version 3.7.25.298441
- Project Layer Limits Viewer version 3.7.26.299805
- Project Managed Marketplace Viewer version 3.7.25.298865
- Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296
Word in March was that a viewer change to improve teleporting and crossing into another region was coming. Also that soon viewers will not install on Windows XP 32 or 64 bit machines.
In March work was proceeding on a fix for texture thrashing from avatar icon memory use. At the time they thought they were about halfway to a completed fix.
Chat servers were getting updates and more research was devoted to figuring out chat problems. Long chat freezes (15 minutes) were reduced to short chat freezes (2 minutes). Voice chat got a round of fixes.
Race conditions that mess up attachments were being tracked down.
Oz Linden revealed that much of the Viewer version 1 code made it into the version 2-3 viewer.
HTTP Pipelining was having a problem with the pipe plugging up.
The Firestorm Viewer Release Date got pushed back to the last week of March. Also in March there were some protests about the Lab deciding to remove the Last Position feature from inventory commands. As it is partly a server side thing it affects the FS viewer. In March the team released a Tool Tips Tuesday video about how to do a Second Life Clean Install.
The TPV Dev’s were discussing the inventory’s ‘Return to Last Position’ feature. The Lab thinks it causes too many problems.
Singularity fixed a problem AMD/ATI users were having.
This month we had a round of Anti-Virus programs causing SL users problems.
Premium members group limit was raised to 50 groups.
Black Dragon Viewer was improving its Volumetric Lighting or aka God Rays.
We were seeing complaints about the Bikini Girls banner ads run by the Lab.
http://blog.nalates.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2014-8a.jpg
We were seeing more coverage of the Lab in the news as a player in VR.
The planned marketplace change to Viewer Managed Marketplace (VMM) was in testing.
A number of Vivox (voice chat) changes were rolled out along with a RC viewer to provide some new controls.
The people running the Capital Exchange game were still fighting to save the game.
The Lindens were changing the mesh uploader to allow more materials per mesh item.
RLV was getting updates.
A number of people were seeing render failures from the Content Delivery Network (CDN). There was some evidence that the then current system was producing worse render times than no CDN. But, the system was changed to improve performance.
The new SL 2.0 announced in June 2014 was more or less officially named NGP, Next Generation Platform, in March. Word was it will make some use of voxels. During the month I ran a series of 9 articles covering Ebbe Altberg’s talk about Project Sansar then known as SL 2.0 or NGP. (click above link or open the March archive)
March saw the end of many SL language translators. Google and Bing changed their API. The interface used to talk to their translation services. The viewers have not been updated to use the new API, even as I write this in December 2015.
The descriptive name Boobzilla Frankenbarbie was introduced by SL resident Imnotgoing Sideways.
Trivia: March 14, 2015 was pie day (π) = 3.14.15
March saw a Slink body update.
Loki Eliot released a set of child mesh bodies.
LOGIN2LIFE, a machinima movie, came out. See: Login2Life Documentary
I updated a 4 year old article on Community Badges, the image used in the SL Forum. See: Second Life Profile Cards/Badges.
Net Neutrality was big in the news.
We were also preparing for April Fool’s Day.