This is the fourth 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.

Second Life in Review: April 2015

Of course the first thing of the month is April Fool’s Day. The Lab released their new viewer made just for the day: Introducing 2DSS Mode for Second Life.

In April Strawberry Singh posted Mean Comments Meme and an impactful image. I think this post was a highlight of the year. My thoughts. Strawberry’s post became controversial. See: Philosophy at Easter – Mean Comments

Viewers:

• SL Main/Default Viewer: 3.7.26.299635, 3.7.28-300918
• RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.27.300323
• RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.27.300242, 3.7.28.300918
• RC Heat Wave Viewer version 3.7.27.300424 – maintenance release
• RC Experience Viewer version 3.8.0.300963,
• RC Layer Limits Viewer version 3.7.27.300567, 3.7.28.301019
• Project Big Bird Viewer version 3.7.27.300377, 3.7.28.300856 – version used by Lab to track down attachment issues.
• Project Layer Limits Viewer version 3.7.27.300098 – changes the logic for what limits are enforced on clothing worn by avatars. Later in the month appears as RC Viewer version.
• Project Managed Marketplace Viewer version 3.7.28.300920
• Project Importer Viewer version 3.7.28.300878
• Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296

Fixes for CDN problems were coming out. A fix for a new login problem that had to do with too many items in a folder. Depending on your connection the limit is about 5,000 items per folder. Attachments remained a continuing problem with some getting lost at login.

Parts of the Viewer Managed Marketplace started to roll out.

New features were added to the Linden Scripting Language (LSL): New flags for llGetObjectDetails(); OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_TYPE and OBJECT_HOVER_HEIGHT.

We started hearing more about Jelly Babies, or the more boring name, avatar muting and Avatar Complexity Information.

The Lab hired outside help for implementing  the change from Webkit to CEF.

Word also came the Lab is going to stop developing their Linux Viewer. Linux viewers are in the hands of third party developers.

This month the Lab requested third party developers get on board with using CDN and the HTTP protocol. We were told that the UDP protocol for downloading things from SL is going to be turned off.

The Linden Snapshot to Email feature was recognized as a problem. Seems it has been triggering black listing and spam black listing blocks some functions SL needs.

There are TPV Dev complaints about AISv3 problems. This month we still see TPV’s that have not moved to using AISv3.

Firestorm asked for more volunteers to test their coming viewer release.

Chic Aeon published a set of tutorials on using Windlight.

Blender 2.74 was released.

High Fidelity went open alpha. They also get their marketplace open… sort of… They provided a tutorial to show people how to install text chat.

SL Go announced it is closing, bought by Sony. This month also saw the announcement of Bright Canopy as a replacement for SL Go.

Remnants of Earth was released. Nine months later the three regions are still running and there are about 30 players in the regions (TRON) as I write this. The MMO within SL got some coverage in various places. See: Remnants of Earth: the MMO inside Second Life, Meet The Mmo That Lives In Second Life.

Also see: The Bushido

This month the regions for the SL12B celebration were online.

The back story on the demise of SL Go is published.

Another SL game making the news:  End of the World as We Know It.

My blog was having problems and using up all available memory. Eventually I moved off a Windows server to a Linux server.

AvaStar for Maya users was released as MayaStar. AvaStar 1.4-5 was released. A new tutorial from Gaia Clary on how to use shape keys was published. How To Use AvaStar Shape Keys. Another video tutorial on how to handle normals was published: Second Life: AvaStar Custom Normals.

Massively closed and this month I figured out that the staff had reopened a new company under the name Massively Overpowered.

This month the Metanomics Translator started failing this month. It was looking like Alchemy Viewer might fix the translation API in the viewer.

Cyber attacks were in the news across the web.

MadPea release their game UNIA.

I publish one of my articles on Second Life Statics.

The official Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer debuted. Eight months later the movie is out for Christmas.

Alicia Chenaux publisher a tutorial on changing shape to make a better smile. Second Life: Smile Shape Tutorial.