Second Life News 2018 w50

This week we have a deploys post. Not much information in them these days. But, we have one. There is no user group meeting this Tuesday. So, no news from there.

Winter storm

Winter Storm

Server

The main channel is to get an update to version #18.12.04.522206. This version has changes to improve region stability, sim-host deployment, and logging.

The RC channels are described as TBD… To Be Determined. As of Monday, something was holding up the decision. I suspect something in the QA review was pending resolution.

The Snack channel is getting an EEP update to 18.12.07.522390.

Flying and playing in Amazon River I’ve been having more trouble
crossing regions. Flying I bang into regions that are offline forcing me to
relog. I hit the boundary and then they turn red on the minimap and show as red after the relog. Annoying. Walking I walk through prim ground/hills and get trapped inside. It has been years since I had to rez a cube to sit on to get out of a prim.

This is sort of a cycle we go through. Get the sims working very well then add new stuff and with it we get problems. Clean those up and repeat.

I also have problems with avatar and area render after a teleport. I’m doing many more ‘refresh attachments’, teleporting to another region and back, toggling all alphas on my mesh body, right-clicking empty places in the region to see if something will rez…

Viewers

The main viewer remains as version 6.0.0.520636. We have run on this version since week #46. We have from now until about the 19th to see an update. Otherwise, it will be 2019 before we get the next update.

Second Life Bugsplat Viewer version 5.1.9.519462 – Last updated in week #37.

Second Life EAM Viewer version 5.2.0.520057 – Moved from Project Viewer to this RC in week #40.

Second Life Love Me Render Viewer version 6.0.1.522045 – This one updates again. Last week it was version 6.0.1.521759. I suspect that an update to add the animesh support. That worked so this week there is likely some new render stuff in this one.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 6.0.1.522263 – New. The previous version 6.0.1.521757
came out in week #47.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version
5.1.6.515934
– Last updated in week #10. OMG, I’ll soon have to be adding a year to this date. This version is so on the back burner. Other projects the user community wants keep superseding
this viewer.

Second Life Project Bakes On Mesh Viewer version
6.0.1.522127
– The previous version5.1.10.520711 updated in week #44. The Lindens are pushing to get this feature out before Christmas. They need help. So, if you are a designer get some testing done. I thing Slink’s Siddean is working with it this week, from what was said in Discord.

Second Life Project EEP Viewer version 6.0.0.521947 – This updated last week, #49. Work is on the scripting controls. That is tied in with experiences. So, it is a bit more complex than one would think at first thought.

Third-Party Viewers

Black Dragon – v3.3.6 is labeled Notifying Dragon. Plus, there are more interface changes… improvements?

 CoolVLViewer-1.26.22.25-Windows-x86_64 – Released 2018-12-08.

FirestormEasing the pain of importing Mesh [with Firestorm]. There is a new mesh import panel in the coming Firestorm 6 Viewer. Beq Janus provides a …tutorial… on using the new panel.

There are a few wiki updates regarding the viewer. Not the splash of them that usually proceeds a release. But, the recent trickle of changes has been more than average, at least when I’ve looked, and Animesh being released means they are pushing to get a release out. I’m sure they hope to get it out before Christmas.

Kokua  – Version 6.0.0.44301 got some new RLV panels to help debug RLV problems. This version is a bit crashy on exit, especially on Macs. But, see New RLV Information Windows for information on the new RLV tools. This is apparently a new thing for RLV and an existing thing for other viewers using RLVa.

Also, we are told the menus in Kokua will be changing. See: Advance
Warning : Main menu changes coming
. There is a set of tables telling what
the existing menu items will be changing to.

Other News

WordPress – If you are a blogger, you likely know WordPress (WP) updated to version 5. The promo is here: WordPress 5.0 marks a new era for the world’s most popular CMS. This is another huge interface change. The editor is less of a text editor and more of a… magazine type stuff editor. No one does just text. We have formatting, asides, images, videos, audios… We put stuff in our articles. So, we now have a stuff editor in WordPress.

Part of the idea in the update is how to reduce the number of plugins we use with WP. I’m not sure how this is going to work for bloggers that have years of content that use old plugins. I expect to find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72xdCU__XCk

Fortunately, you can install the Classic Editor and stay with what you know. That is a good thing because many are having problems. So, you may want to wait until after Christmas to update. By then you should be able to get some decent reviews of the update and decide if you need to delay
waiting for the next update with fixes for the problems 5.0 has.

At the end of the linked-to-article are links to tutorials. You will need them.

I write in Word and paste into WP. That really doesn’t work with the new blocks editor.  I wrote this article in Word and pasted to the new blocks editing window. I have to do about 30 minutes extra of figuring out and fixing the help blocks provided. So, this is not my favorite update :/ At this point I think it totally sucks. But, I’ll wade through the tutorials.

Strawberry is running her annual poll on which mesh bodies and heads people are using. Jump over add your votes. Berry’s 2018 Mesh Body Parts Survey

OpenSim & VR – Seems someone (Melanie Thielker) figured out how to get VR working with OpenSim (OS)… well the Avination version of OS.

The Unreal engine is used to pull off this trick. The grid has to be converted to work with the Unreal engine. And you have to forego seeing avatars…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASojvwabJpY

So… does this mean the Lab will look at VR once more? Probably. I suspect they keep an eye on VR and innovations that may make it usable with Second Life. I doubt the Lab is going to go the ‘Unreal Engine’ path that OS is using. As SL is a commercial project, they would have to license it. OS not being a for profit company can use the free license. I don’t see the benefits  being worth the cost and suspect the Lindens will see it the same.

Swaginator Hunt – We are in week four. This week last like week, the Portal Park seems to need a restart. Maybe it will work better Tuesday after restarts.

The hint… is that a hint? A couple of weeks ago the prize was hidden in Winter Wonderland. Is that where it is again? I don’t know. I do know I’m not going to search Winter Wonderland again… The prizes are not that good.

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