Second Life

Things about SL

Second Life News 2013-11 #2

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New software rolled to the main and RC channels this week. There isn’t much to say about the rolls. We hit some problems with last week’s rolls. Fixes for those problems are in this week’s RC channels.

The main channel got the Large Object Rez upgrade that Baker Linden worked on. The idea was to place handling the rez tasks in separate threads. This allows the simulator to continue doing other tasks while a large link set is rezzed.

Moonlight Meeting Server-Scripting 2013-11
Moonlight Meeting Server-Scripting 2013-11

Blue Steel and Le Tigre are getting the same package. It fixes a crash mode. Presumably this is some exploit fix. I think that because almost nothing else is being said about it.

The Magnum channels got the package from last week with fixes for problem found last week. The known fixes are; region managers being exempted from Direct TP disable, neighboring region visibility issues, and bogus User Not Online error messages. 

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Second Life Problem Bug

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Maestro Linden posted in the Deploys thread about a bug they are having trouble reproducing. If you are seeing this behavior file a JIRA with your details and as precise a time for the experience as possible.

The one bug that we’re having trouble reproducing is a bit different:

  • User-A TPs into somewhat busy sim
  • User-A sees themselves at landing point
  • Other users see User-A at the landing point
  • User-A walks around
  • Other users see User-A move around
  • User-A appears to not move on his viewer (although animations play) – this is the bug

Aside from not seeing his own avatar move, User-A apparently sees everything else normally (objects appear, other avatars move).  We’re not sure why it only affects some users in some locations.

Second Life’s SUN-38 Dilemma

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SUN-38 is a bug report in the Second Life™ JIRA. The details of the JIRA item are visible to most SL users, I think. In case not, the title is: As users of kneel/lay/sit animations and tiny/giant avatars, we need a way to change the body size in SSB sims.

The description of the problem is:

In server-side baking regions, it becomes impossible to change your avatar’s apparent size (bounding box X and Y sizes and pelvis to feet length) since the LLAgent::sendAgentSetAppearance() function becomes a NOP.

All TPVs are providing a way to adjust your apparent avatar body size: this is of uttermost importance to adjust the height above the ground for sitting (on ground), kneeling, crouching and laying anims (since those specific anims are sensitive to the pelvis to feet length and changing your shape or shoes affects this length, that, when different from the length the animation was designed for, makes your avatar either float or sink into the ground).

RLV enabled TPVs even provide a way for scripts to adjust automatically this “Z offset” so that any avatar sees the animations played right (see the full story about this feature here: http://sldev.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=447).

Such a “Z offset” also allows to adjust your avatar’s position for devices you “sit on” and that play a sit animation without letting you adjust its offset (which, again, depends on what shape and shoes your avatar is wearing).

With the appearance of rigged meshes and the tiny or giant avatars, it also became very important to adjust the bounding box (X and Y sizes) for the avatars: a tiny avatar should not bump into obstacles like if its shoulders would be 45cm wide when they are only 15cm, and giant avatars should also have a possibility for their actual shoulder width to be taken into account. Granted, the current (non-SSB) servers do clamp the values sent by the viewers, but at least, there is some possible leeway (and it would be a good occasion to remove that clamping, or at least to allow for a wider range of values).

Being unable to adjust our avatar body size in SSB regions is a MAJOR regression. Please, provide a way to do it !!!

If you only use the SL Viewer, you may not know about the Z-Offset. But, you have seen the reason for it with shoes. When one puts on various shoes they may appear to float above or sink into the floor/ground. This floating/sinking is caused by a combination of how the shoes fit and the size of your avatar.

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Second Life News 2013-11

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In late February problems in ADITI were slowing down Third Part Party work on SSAB (Server Side Avatar Baking). Nyx Linden explained that some of the problems in the SSAB pile-on test were caused by inventory failures. The problem then becomes sorting out what is an ADITI Inventory issue and what is a SSAB issue.

In any event, some significant changes have been made to ADITI Inventory. Unfortunately the changes may not save you from problems if you change your password to trigger an inventory refresh. My experience has been to keep changing your password until it corrects. But, with these changes the Lindens are saying if a password change breaks your inventory, contact them and they will fix it.

New SSAB Pile-On

Two new pile-on tests are planned for this week. There will be a test using the SSAB Project viewer, which you can download now. That test will be after the Server Beta meeting Thursday in Morris, ADITI. The meeting starts at 3 PM SLT. The test will start whenever the meeting ends, scheduled for 4 PM. But, meeting do end early. So, be early.

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Gwyneth Llewelyn’s mADness

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I like Gwyneth’s writing because; her ideas are clearly expressed and her thinking rational. Her latest is about Linden Lab starting to use Google’s Adsense advertising and people’s reactions. It ranges from estimates of how much the Lab may be making to the psychological aspects of SL and the freedom available in SL that IS NOT available in other social sites/games/networks.

Gwyneth points out the details of how the Lab is using the advertising. She compares it to how other services use advertising. The Lab is certainly atypical in their use of Adsense.

The basic idea many people have is that paid services do NOT have advertising. But, that is not accurate. Consider cable and satellite TV. Those are paid services that have a load of advertising. Newspapers and magazine that we purchase have a load of advertising too. We pay to go into a movie and then sit through ads for coming movies and local services and products.

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Viewers Update 2013-10

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It has been a while since I took a look at a number of viewers. Rather than post them separately, I’ve lumped them together, except for Nirans. I had not used it for months, so I expected lots of changes.

SL Viewers

The main Linden Viewer is still at version 3.4.5 (270263), pre CHUI (Chat Hub User Interface). I seldom use the Beta Viewer now. It is more of a fall back viewer for when a Development Viewer version has problems. This morning the Beta is at version 3.5.0 (271345). The Development Viewer had been at version 3.5.1 (270826) for about 10 days. Today it updated to 3.5.1 (271386).

I am still fighting with the CHUI update to keep it the size I WANT IT. Other than sizing problems I like the new CHUI. The new build 271386 seems to have some of the sizing problems fixed.

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