Server

Today we are getting new roll outs to the main grid and tomorrow release channels. There have been problems with recent releases for 3 or 4 weeks. Projects were rolled back, revised and retested on the release channels. Code for the introduction of mesh has and is being merged into the main code base during this time. It seems this has revealed a rash of problems that are being fixed. The result is the news about server upgrades is rather boring and vague.

Main Grid – AGNI

The changes rolling to the main grid are mostly what I’ll call backend changes, those we don’t really see. They affect our experience in terms of performance. But, there is nothing new like shadows or Display Names to see.

This release has the ever ubiquitous bug fixes.

The API (Application Programming Interface) for working with friends changes.  This is something those building applications for Second Life and viewers can make use of. For the rest of us, it has little relevance until others implement the use of it.

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The last two weeks have been hectic for the Lindens. Several updates to the server software did not work as expected and the crash rates went up. It seems those have been corrected and things are returning to the normal cycle of upgrades.

This week’s (today’s) roll out was stopped and rolled back part way through the process. Something went wrong.

Snack Release Channel

One of the code updates that is proving difficult to get working is the Mono2 upgrade. You probably remember it is the Mono scripts rezzing in a region that caused regions to stall for 5 to 30 seconds. That fix has been in progress since Mono was released. A couple of times now Mono2 updates and improvements have been rolled out and back. The Snack Release Channel is a special channel made up of just a few simulators on the main grid where the Mono2 changes can be tested.

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Not much exciting stuff this week. There is some confusion as to what is happening. If I understand correctly the Maint-Server updates are still in the Blue Steel channel and they have been rolled to the main grid. The updates are a collection of fixes to known problems, a couple of bugs that crash sims and a logging thing that should help performance have been added to Blue Steel and will now be testing.

A little disappointing is the fix for jumping vehicles, the bounce as they move from prim to prim, which in testing on the ADITI grid has been removed. The fix worked with Havok 4 (which was on the main grid in mid 2010) but has been shown to create unexpected side effects with Havok 7 in ADITI. See JIRA SVC-5880 for the history of this fix. So, the lab will backup and try again.

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So what is a Physics Material?

These are materials that can be applied to an object. They allow one to adjust friction, density, gravity multiplier, and restitution… and I have no idea what the restitution part is about. So, with a material you could make a balloon that floats away. Balloons are more fun indoors. Vehicles behave better with 5x gravity.

Eventually these settings will be scriptable. More testing is needed to see if there are griefer exploits the Lindens have not thought of. Once they are pronounced safe, the scripting side will be added.

Material settings do not work on avatar attachments. Avatar attachments are excluded from physics calcs, so Physics Materials have no effect when worn.

Falcon Linden is going to offer a bounty for first person to crash an Experimental Mesh region (ADITI) using Physics Materials. The region is apparently not set up yet. The controls will be in the Mesh Project viewer.

Several new features are in testing on the Preview Grid. This new stuff is coming to the main SL grid in the next few weeks. Until then you can preview it in ADITI.

llCastRay is a Linden Scripting Language (LSL) function. You may or may not know that SL guns rez and fling prim bullets. Rezzing prims produces lag. Rezzing prims with scripts causes even more lag. llCastRay is a replacement for that process. One may be able to develop weapons with less lag using llCastRay.

Details on the function are in the SL Wiki: llCastRay()

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It seems that the XMPP Chat the Lab has been implementing and testing in ADITI is not providing the improvements hoped for. So, progress on implementing XMPP Chat is stalled. The effort is changing to finding out what is the causing chat problems we have now.

According to what the Lindens say in the Beta Server Meeting the new XMPP Chat was no better than the current chat. The decision has been made that the Lab will not be replacing our current chat with a new system that is no better.

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