Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
Today we are getting the server maintenance package that ran on Blue Steel and Le Tigre this last week. This is the package that addresses the disconnection issue people have been experiencing.
These release channels will be getting a new maintenance package. There are some interesting fixes and additions in this package.
There is a new interview with Rod out. You’ll find it at BOSL in their latest magazine: June 2013
We learn that Welcome areas will be redone. Alpha and Beta testing will start in the next few weeks.
Rod provides a compelling description of what Second Life is. So, if you’re ever at a loss for when someone asks you what SL is, read the article.
At the Content and Mesh User Group meeting the topic of the Mesh Deformer came up. Oz Linden attended the meeting to field the question posed by Mona Eberhardt : “What’s the current status of the mesh deformer? What features have been requested by content creators? Of these features, which are the most important and which could be omitted or postponed?”
Oz Linden’s response, “The deformer is waiting for LL resources to evaluate how well it works and what its performance impact is. I have not been able to get the required people on it yet. I’m optimistic that will happen, but can’t offer any timeline.
Sorry… I know that’s not a great answer, but consider that it could be worse.”
There really isn’t any new news. Oz Linden and Lab are involved in other projects. Oz says he is continuing to pester management for people to work on the avatar and Deformer. But, people, users, are poking around trying to find out what is happening with the Deformer. That is leading to more drama and fussing in the JIRA.
Yeah, yeah, whatever… I understand the sentiment. I don’t by mesh clothes. I do like some mesh hair and have bought some. But, posting in the JIRA that you won’t buy mesh is of no help to the development process. Duh! Nor do the Lindens care that much about what we do or don’t buy. There is plenty of buying going on from the Linden viewpoint.
I follow some fashion blogs. There is a lot of mesh clothing out there. People seem to be buying it. I have no way to know if the hold outs not buying mesh outnumber those that are buying mesh. Whatever the case, I doubt the Lab is concerned one way or the other.
The week of May 26 to June 1 Oz Linden checked and reported that 1,665 different viewer versions that logged into Second Life™. That is an approximation of the number of different viewers in use. The SL system records viewer version strings. Each version of a viewer is to have a unique ID string. But, this is open source and people do whatever they do. So, there is a probability some ID strings don’t get changed. Thus I say approximate.
Some of these versions are one user only viewers, meaning: someone compiles a viewer for their own amusement and use. They never distribute the version. They may or may not change the version string.
Then there are the griefer viewers. They try to imitate other viewers and may duplicate another viewer’s version string to hide.
The result is going to be more viewer versions than the system recognizes.
There is a bit of news coming from various places.
Server Side Appearance has a problem that the Lindens have been working on for the past week. Well, thinking about, I’m not sure they are writing code. I first mentioned the problem of corrupting modifiable eyes and skin when going in and out of SSA enabled and disabled regions here: SSA Coming Not Too Soon.
Some people say the problem is unique to the Phoenix Viewer. Latif Khalifa tried the SL Viewer 1.23, pre-SSA Singularity, Imprudence and Phoenix. But, only found the problem on Phoenix. Whirly Fizzle said. She could reproduce the problem on the SL Viewer 1.23. Whirly says old FS viewers were OK and did not have the problem.