The Second Life Project Bento Viewer version 5.0.0.310099 will have a new set of bones in its next release. We’ll see that soon, but there is no time line for the update. The Lab is experimenting with reconfiguring bones and taking feedback on which bones are needed.
DISTANCE ♥ – By: Nayra31 Collas @ Flickr
The Lab has identified different circumstances that cause joints to get out of position. Apparently not all updates to joint positions is making it across the net during load mesh and animation loading. Poor connections make this a bad problem. But it is an uncommon problem for those with decent connections. Remember. A good Internet connection does not mean you have a good connection the Second Life™ servers. But, connection problems are not the usual cause of out-of-place bones and/or joints.
The more common cause is a problem between getting position changes recorded in mesh and getting rotations for those positions from an animation not made for those positions. This is proving to be a problem to figure out and resolve. Making it even worse different users are getting the information in a different order. So, somewhat a sync prob.
A 3rd way the problem is caused has to do with how avatars move, quadipeds seen have the problem more often. Something to do with arms being used as legs.
It seems to be related to default animations. The SL system has a default set of animations. So, if animation ‘A’ for a horse is playing and comes to its end then a script triggers animation ‘B’ to start, there is a small break in time before B plays. The server tries to play the default animation, which when not for a quadipeds causes a problem. So, by the time ‘B’ starts playing things are messed up.
The problem is eliminated when using a newer style AO that replaces default animations. It is the script based animation sequences that leave the standard default animations loaded where the Lindens see the most problems. The Lindens are talking about how this might be fixed or some recovery process created.
For now the Lindens are working on cleaning up bone and joint issues. This next Bento viewer release may have a next-to-last-bone-set. We will probably see a new release in the next couple of weeks. They will put the bone set out as a preliminary final. This means if you want changes, get them in now.
The Lab is working on an update to the Second Life Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296. We have been talking about it for over a year. But, a couple of weeks ago Oz mentioned that he had put people on the Rift viewer. Pretty soon we should actually see an update.
While we can’t see it, the Lab is working on a 64-bit viewer. It will be a few weeks before there is a project viewer released. When it is released there will be 64-bit libraries for Third Party Dev’s to use in their viewers.
Once the 64-bit viewer is out the Lab is planning to drop 32-bit Mac support. There are so few 32-bit Macs running there is no point.
The Firestorm team is still having a challenge with CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework). LL has some new fixes to CEF. Oz thinks they are out… meaning in the Maintenance viewer, I think. The Lab is still working on minor bugs. Next maintenance release will have more CEF fixes.
A couple of Anti-Virus packages don’t like the new CEF. Wors is the new HTTP Pipelining is a problem for some Anti-Virus packages.
By spring all viewers will have to be using a viewer with TSL 1.2, a security and encryption standard. Those that do not have it will lose the ability to do money things. This change is driven by legal compliance issues.
Ed Marryman pointed out a problem some people are seeing. Seems before Christmas avatars started failing to show up in viewer or appeared in odd places. Odd places are like 0,0,0 when the mini-map shows them somewhere else. Or you see them 200m up in the air when the person tells you they are standing beside you. Some think it is an interest list thing… Support people say it is happening more often these days.
If you see the problem, shout down, collect your log files, and get them to the Lab. Remember. Server logs are not kept for long. It varies from server to server depending on what the Lindens are doing with that particular server, but the default is 3 days. The logs are huge. So, the Lindens need to get your information quickly and with as an exact a time as possible. Exact time reduces the amount of data they have to dig through. Oh, and the region name is handy…
Open Source User Group
Oz is moving the Monday Open Source UG meeting from Monday to Wednesday. Same time and location.