No roll to the main channel this week. I didn’t expect any rolls as it is a short week with Monday being an American holiday.
the very bored
The RC channels did get a new package. Surprising. This is another boring Internal Simulator Fixes package.
Calab Linden seems to have permanently taken over making the Deploy announcements. He is making the forum and wiki posts. They seem to be turning into boiler plate announcements. He might as well abbreviate the reporting in the forum to Yes or No.
We can assume Internal means there is no user apparent change to the server. The change will have something to do with issues that affect operation in ways only important to Lindens. So, may be a variable name changes to better describe its function, a change makes package roll out more efficient, communication between a backend service improved… all things that say little to the user. But, these are still of interest to the geek crowd.
The lack of new features or improved existing features suggests most of the work is happening on larger projects or the viewer. We know there were changes to the inventory processes and Experience Tools going on. We haven’t heard that they have ended. Also, a VIVOX update was expected. We just aren’t getting information about those things.
If you have never been shopping at Bare Rose, you have missed out on a classic shopping experience of Second Life™. I think everyone should go at least once.
Bare Rose Oct 2014 – Something for Everyone
Ciaran Laval has an article up on Bare Rose turning 10. That is old in SL years. (6 SL Days = 1 RL day – 4 hour days in SL) Something like 60 years… well… that is one way to look at it.
Second Life™ is getting a new tool to hopefully induce people to reduce avatar generated lag; the Avatar Complexity Rating. I’ve written about it before and I am trying to play with the Project Quick Graphics Viewer version 3.8.4.304761, which adds avatar complexity settings and notices.
Complexity KB Value
The notice that appears in the upper right of the screen just after login tells you your avatar complexity number. I suggested that it be colored, green good and red bad, just as the Show Avatar Render Complexity Information (ARC) display does.
They note the other factors that can cause avatars to be rendered a Jelly Babies;
total attachment surface area
total attachment byte size
You can change the values of these settings in Debug Settings. See:
RenderAvatarMaxNonImposters – The maximum number of avatars closest to your camera who may be fully rendered. Avatars beyond those will be rendered as ‘imposters’, which means that the rendering will be a little simpler and they will be updated less frequently. Increasing this value can cost you in performance if you’re in a crowd. This does not cause them to render as Jelly Babies.
RenderAvatarMaxComplexity – Any avatars over this complexity will be drawn as solid color outlines. Changing this value directly may cause problems; use the slider in the advanced graphics preferences floater.
RenderAutoMuteSurfaceAreaLimit –The limit for the total surface area of attachments before switching to solid color rendering. The default (10 million square meters) is intended to protect against deliberate abuse and should rarely be encountered.
RenderAutoMuteByteLimit – The limit for the total number of bytes of attachments before switching to solid color rendering. The default (10 million bytes) is intended to protect against deliberate abuse and should rarely be encountered.
As you may have guessed, the last two are mostly to stop some griefing issues. But, those settings can be used to improve viewer performance.
Changing RenderAvatarMaxComplexity in the Debug Settings doesn’t seem to be a problem. Whether I change it in the Preferences panel as the Lindens recommend or in Debug Settings the change is reflected in the other. But, getting to the Preferences setting is much easier. Whether changing the setting there affects other settings not affected by using the Debug Setting, I have no information. It is a possibility, but I have not seen anything that leads me to think that happens. But, this is a Project Viewer and it will change.
Second Life’s Strawberry Singh posted Juggling Raccoons. She mentions Mutresse having raccoons at the The Arcade Gacha. An endless event running but now with Raccoons. You can teleport to the Arcade using this SLURL or search in the World Map using The Arcade.
As of 9/3 we have a new version of Project Quick Graphics Viewer version 3.8.4.304761.
My first experiences using it are not good. Within 5 minutes is was getting 2 or 3 FPS and going Not Responding. Memory use wasn’t all that high, 1.3gb. But, using System Explorer (free program) and clearing memory still helps.
The main viewer, Second Life 3.8.3 (304115), ran much better. So, unless you are wanting to play with the Graphics Settings feature or Complexity Settings, you may want to wait a couple of weeks before you try it.
With the release of this body comes support for Omega Appliers. They say,
With this body I have introduced Omega support. This means you will need to purchase the Slink activator from the Love -n- Lust Designs marketplace store and use it with your Physique body and your Omega HUD.
If you have male hands and/or feet there is an update. Go to the store and get updated. The change is they now use Omega appliers.
Many Slink items for males are discounted until September 18th. Visit the store to see those.
