Second Life News Week 2 – #2

This past week a Third Pary Develpoers’ meeting was held. Not much in the way of NEW news, but lots of updates… except for one big block buster.

Cyborg

Cyborg

Viewers

The Maintenance RC got prompted Friday morning and is now the main SL viewer: 4.0.1-310054. If you have been having problems and low FPS this release should help. This version is the second main viewer with the CEF. It also has lots of fixes. 

The previous RC viewers HTTP, Co-routines & a Vivox update with all known voice fixes have merged to a single viewer. You’ll find the combination in Official Alternate viewers as: Second Life HTTP update Viewer version 4.0.1.309943.

Release Notes: This viewer release is a complete replacement of the under the hood HTTP infrastructure. It provides improved performance and stability by replacing the self-deleting responders with coroutine implementations. These coroutines also provide a finer grained concurrency allowing the Viewer greater control over the numbers and types of HTTP requests that can be simultaneously outstanding. This release also removes a considerable amount of deprecated and unused code from the viewer.

These changes impact all areas of the viewer that use Sim Capabilities. A nonexhaustive list includes:

  • Asset upload (Images, Meshes, Animations)
  • AISv3 inventory manipulation
  • Viewer Managed Marketplace
  • Simhost event polling
  • LSL script compilation
  • Experience management (blocking, allowing, creating)

Additionally, this release corrects a number of Voice quality and connection issues on both Windows and the Mac.

The above list is a bit incomplete. So, to get a better appreciation for what is in this release one would need to review the release notes for co-routines and Vivox RC viewers. You can use the version numbers from my previous articles to find them, if you’re into that.

The RC Second Life Quick Graphics Viewer version 4.0.1.309320 needs tweaks and changes in Complexity Information calc’s. I suspect they are adjusting based on feedback and experience with edge cases.

The Second Life Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296 is finally being updated. It has been more than a year since it was last worked on. We don’t have any word on whether the UI is being improved. It infuriates me that what I consider some of the most obvious questions are not asked at these meetings… Oh well… If I can’t get there, I probably shouldn’t complain.

We do know that all the updates in the last year have to be integrated into this version. So, it is probably going to take some work. Or it may actually be they will pull the Oculus parts into the current viewer code… I’m not sure how they’ll do the update.

My hope is what the Sansar developers have been looking at and learning for a VR interface is making its way to Second Life’s viewer.

Second Life Project Bento Viewer version 5.0.0.309171 – This viewer version has features only useable on certain regions in ADITI. Oz says the project is going well, meaning the Lindens are seeing good content and feedback coming in.

Most content is not Lab’s. So, it isn’t on display anywhere. So, unless a developer leaves a copy of an avatar out… there is nothing to see. Animations run on avatars and bots. So, unless someone leaves a bot running a new Bento avatar and animation, there is nothing to see. The Bento regions have a 12 hour return (unconfirmed)… but, like I said… there won’t be much to see.

If you want to see what is being tested, get the Project Bento viewer and being be in Bento Island, ADITI at 1 PM (SLT) Thursday. Check the Bento UG announcements to confirm that meeting hasn’t been pushed to accommodate last minute Linden scheduling conflicts.

WARNING: If you attend the Bento UG, go early. I consistently have a problem logging into ADITI. I can never get to my ‘last location’. Today, Sunday, as I write this I can’t teleport to Bento Island. So, expect some login problems.

I do expect to see some neat content at Thursday’s meeting, lots of wings and tails

Project Bento

For skeleton extensions the Bento regions are currently open to any skeleton you want to upload. Lab is taking suggestions. So, various experimental skeletons can be uploaded. I have trouble imagining you can add bones, but that seems to be what I heard. Listen to Pantera’s video at 2:20 TM.

07:00 – Issues getting into Beta Grid. The people at the TPD’s meeting are seeing the problems I see. If you need your ADITI inventory sync’d, file a support ticket. My understanding is the will be the older total inventory replacement. That sync is being changed to a merge-update type of sync. When in place our ADITI inventory will be a supper set of the AGNI and ADITI inventories.

That change is built and has moved into the QA cue now. The change is a lower priority that some number of other things, so no work is being done now. But soon the QA testing (1/15) will start.

The old and new sync does not sync groups. There is no relationship between groups on ADITI & AGNI. In a recent review by Lab peeps into such things led to a decision not to try to relate ADITI and AGNI groups. Too many complications.

11:30 – Firestorm is behind schedule. Mid Feb was planned date for a Firestorm release. The next release is currently expected to be late. Mac versions of FS and SL are both behind because CEF is causing problems. Mac 64 bit causing problems and Mac 32 bit seems to impossible. So, the block buster is:

Linden Going 64-Bit

12:00 Oz Linden says the Lab is actively building Windows and Mac 64 bit viewer versions. The Lab’s CEF will not build on 32 bit for Mac. So… the Lab is building 64 bit. It may be they drop Mac 32 bit. If it is easy they’ll do a 32 bit version. Otherwise they’ll drop it. Expect to find out which and see releases about the end of this quarter.

FS dropped 32-bit Mac versions from their viewer lineup some time ago.

14:00 – Callum Linden is working on building the 64-bit viewers. Any information about 64 bit problems that 3rd party devs know, please send info to Callum.

15:00 – Oz says many of the backed up third party contributions are being folded into the 64-bit builds. Bento has postponed work on many of those contributions. So, Oz is trying to get caught up.

16:30 – Discussion turned to talking about NOT CLEARING CACHE. If you don’t already know, pay attention. Seriously. Even the support people at Linden Lab are messing up on this. The ONLY reason for clearing the viewer cache is a corrupted cache. With the error correcting HTTP protocol replacing most of the communications channels between the viewer and SL servers, cache corruption is a VERY VERY rare occurrence.

These days a cache clear is likely to aggravate or cause more problems than it solves. Serious inventory problems are the only consistent reason for clearing the cache.

28:00 – Oz was asked about mirrors. His answer was that there are too many corner cases for mirrors to be implemented. Think about curved surfaces and mirrors reflecting mirrors. The thinking in the Lab is they would get more complaints about mirrors not working well than they do about there being no mirrors. So, no mirrors, at least for all of the foreseeable future.

24 hour days coming. They are in the works. No ETA on when we will see them. But, they are a favorite of CEO Ebbe’s. So, the only doubt about them is when.

Since time is set by the SL servers, the day length setting is a server side change. Expect some lower and upper limit on the length of day. Region Windlight will set day length in real hours. Also a setting for when midnight happens is planned.

The Lab will keep the current 4 hour default. But, region owners will be able to set the day cycle for their regions.

Oz tells us some other new environment changes coming. He isn’t saying what. Volumetric rain? No clues.

32:00 – Discussion turns to whether Whirly ever sleeps. If you don’t know Whirly Fizzel, she is one of the more amazing technical people contributing to Second Life. Personality, technical talent, and a bit of a different taste in avatars, all interesting… all in one package.

37:00 – Bento Bunny comes up in the discussion. (See: Second Life: Project Bento Update Week 2 for video) It is a good example for why we should have two or more bones for ears. Oz says they are considering that possibility. So, maybe… The Lindens will decide how much performance impact they’ll allow the new Bento avatars.

The Lindens are telling us the maximum number of attachments allowed will not increase.

One thought on “Second Life News Week 2 – #2

  1. Pingback: Não limpar cache | Jane SL

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