Scripting

Scripting Week 36

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llCastRay

SprSrsNoFun brought up an aspect of the llCastRay():llCastRay seems to not function properly once you get to a certain velocity.

The object with the script that executes llCastRay() starts to return somewhat random results once it reaches a certain speed. This is one of those real time problems that involve timing of the script, server, and physics engine. Since the server’s script and physics engines are asynchronous they are not in lock step. So, when the script fires the function may be in a different frame than when the physics engine sees it fired. One may not get the results they expect.

Simon Linden said it this way, “Well, your llGetPos() might execute on one frame, and the ray cast on another, after things have moved.”

Andrew answered, “SprSrsNoFun, the problem you’re seeing is that the script engine is running asynchronously with the physics engine. That is to say, the moments your script gets to run is spotty, and not necessarily synched with the physics engine.

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Scripting News Week 34

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Working with Pathfinding I’ve needed to do some things I don’t normally do. Basically I avoid doing rotations as much as possible because I just have not gotten my brain around idea of Euler-Quaternion and why gimbal lock is a problem.

The new task I needed to accomplish is how to get my Pathfinding AI Character to look at someone in the area. We have lots of new functions that can be used to assist with that.

My Pathfinding Character

I looked at llLookAt(). This function points the positive Z-axis toward an agent or object. That creates an immediate problem because the llCreateCharacter() points the Z-axis up. I think one can rotate the Character to make the Z-axis horizontal, but that doesn’t work for my character that needs to be taller than it is wide.

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#SL News Week 33

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Bandwidth

Bandwidth is a problem right now. Those using capped services and those having ISP’s with a strict abuse ToS are supposedly running into problems.

Server & Scripting 8/2012

The Magnum release channel seems to suffer the most. The worst case is when approaching the SW corner of a region that has 3 adjacent regions. Large draw distance aggravate the problem.

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#SL Vehicle Work-Around

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I found a work-around for some of the vehicle problems in the SL Forum. MB Robonaught wrote: While many of the problems with vehicles used on Pathfinder have been addressed to help with older created cars, there remains a few issues that need serious attention for newer Mesh cars. As per SVC-8048 I have discovered that if … Read more

HTML HUD’s

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About a year ago Kelly Linden debuted HTML HUD’s. See: #SL Server Update Week 34 for my first mention of HTML HUD’s in 2011. We have not seen many of these being used. The advantage of HTML HUD’s the reduction in scripts and prims needed to make a working interface.

Darien Caldwell is one of the creative types making such HUD’s. He has pointed out that these JIRA’s are a problem:

VWR-29448 – HTML (Shared Media) HUD objects exhibit Unintuitive Focus and Control Behavior. This is about how the HUD’s work and look within the viewer. Most floated in the viewer go transparent when they lose focus. We know that we have to shift focus to the panel, by clicking it, before we can click buttons in the Panel. HTML HUD’s do not go transparent when losing focus. This means we click buttons in them, probably expecting something to happen, and nothing happens. That nothing is deceiving. The first click shifts focus. A second click will activate the button.

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#SL Server News Week 32

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There isn’t a lot of news yet this week. I think everyone knows that Pathfinding rolled out to the main channel. You can find most of the information about Pathfinding in the SL Wiki: Second Life Pathfinding  Category. The new Pathfinding Tools are in the Beta Viewer.

It is unclear, at least to me, when those tools will roll into the production release viewer. There is no estimate when the third party viewers (TPV) will have all the tools. I expect the Linden and TPV’s to catch up this month.

Server Scripting August 2012

Simon noted Tuesday that the crash rate for Pathfinding (PF) regions had jumped up after the roll out. But, it seemed to be stabilizing and coming down. I suppose when one adds 5 times more regions the possibility of finding problems goes up five-fold too. Whatever, as of the time of the meeting the Lab was only collecting data and watching the system.

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#SL Server News Week 31

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The main channel got the Advanced Creator Tools (AKA: Experience Tools). Torley Linden has a new video out showing a bit of what they can do. Watch it on Hamlet’s NWN in: SL Creators: What Will You Do With Your New Teleport Agent & Temporary Attachment Tools?

Server Scripting July 2012.

You can read the official Linden announcement on the SL Blog: First Set of Advanced Creator Tools Launched Today. These are the tools that were used in Linden Realms.

This set of tools gives us new Scripting Functions. We will soon start to see new teleport units appearing. They will use the new functions: llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords(). These are for intra-region and inter-region teleports. A nice feature in them is you can control which way an avatar faces when they arrive.

One of the odd kinks in how the functions work is for the teleport to work differently than they do now, at least permissions-wise, is one must own the TP device. That is where llAttachToAvatarTemp() comes in.

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