Server

Second Life News 2014-3

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This week there are no updates rolling out to the servers. At this point all we know is Maestro Linden has said they want to allow the existing packages to run for another week. We may learn more at today’s (1/14) Server & Scripting meeting.

There are a couple of speculations that it is from a problem with region crossings or the rash of unscheduled inventory maintenance events we have been seeing. The maintenance passes are happening several times per week. SL has been working pretty well for me, so I have no guesses at this point. I do continue to see people in Answers complaining of being logged out. I’ve run into that problem too. But, only once.

Religious Places in SL

We have an interesting new page in the Second Life Wiki: Religious Places. It seems to be the result of effort from Anaimfinity Resident. Anaimfinity notes the page should be complete this month. If you know of place that is not on the list, you can add it.

Mimes

Strawberry Singh has her Monday Mimes going again. This week’s is about practical jokes. I’m admitting nothing… it wasn’t me.

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Second Life News 2014-2

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Recently we have seen a number of people complaining about getting disconnected, repeatedly. No one has determined if it is an SL problem or just problems local to the users being disconnected.

Viewers

The main release SL Viewer today is: 3.6.12-284506. I expect that to change this week.

The RC viewers are now:

We have more project viewers this week:

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Second Life News 2013-51 #2

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Scripting

We have a new Linden Scripting Language (LSL) function coming: llScaleByFactor(). It allows for uniform scaling of an entire linked set with one LSL call. If you size hair or shoes, you may notice the ripple of size changes as the item is scaled prim by prim. This function will provide a faster and more efficient way to accomplish the same thing.

This change will go into an RC release that is planned for January.

Server-Scripting Meeting 2013-51 - Andrew's last meeting.
Server-Scripting Meeting 2013-51 – Andrew’s last meeting.

Andrew says this feature is already running in ADITI on there regions: Boardman, Borrowdale, Balance, Mayfair and Hawkshead. So, you should be able to test the function there, now.

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Second Life News Week 51

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Second Life is now in a no change window. So, there will be no server rollouts this week. Nor will the main SL Viewer update. We might still see an RC Viewer update or two. The current no change window ends January 1. That only leaves two days in the week for changes to rollout. I don’t expect much change in that two day period.

Holidays are here and I’m busy with real life stuff. That means there won’t be much stuff in this blog for the next couple weeks.

Inara Pey has an article up about Fitted Mesh. See: Fitted Mesh: “last call” for issues; release candidate “after the holiday”. Inara points out the Lindens’ calls for feedback on Fitted Mesh. It seems the Lindens’ plans are to have a project viewer out early in the new year. Early as in just after the holidays. That makes it urgent to get your feedback regarding Fitted Mesh in as soon as possible.

This is sort of a ‘speak now or forever more hold your peace’ type of thing.

While Oz Linden has said they may make additional changes to the avatar, the window for changes to be made to the avatar skeleton is closing. Changes and fixes to the skeleton not made now will likely have to wait some time, like years. So, get the Fitted Mesh Project Viewer and make sure things work as you want.

Suggestions, changes, and feature suggestions should be made in FITMESH project section of the SL JIRA.

Avastar users should keep checking the download page for test versions that work with the new avatar skeleton and collision bones.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Second Life News 2013-50

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Tuesday the main grid will get the roll out expected. This is a small maintenance package has a fix for llGetAgentInfo() so it now detects AGENT_CROUCHING.

RC Channels

All three channels will get the same package. The Maestro Linden in the SL forum describes the new packages as: “ This project contains a single bug fix, related to vehicles becoming stuck in the ‘sat upon’ state (which prevents parcel autoreturn).”

This will likely be the last set of server updates until after January 6th.

Viewers

Read the viewer update in the previous article for the latest viewer news.

Regions Closing

Beach Front Reality closed as I mentioned last week. They ran about 50 regions. Ciaran has an article up: Private Sim Losses Swell Due To Large Estate Closure. Ciaran’s suggestion that the Lab should approach some of the people that owned 50% or more of a region, is something I think would have been smart.

Fifty regions at $300± per month is US$15,000 or $180,000 per year. I would think that marketing or customer service could have put someone on contacting these people and making a deal with them.

Second Life News 2014-49 #4

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From the Third Party Viewer meeting we learn that the viewer install code has been changed to make use of RC and Project installs easier for the Lab and TPV Dev’s. Earlier I mentioned Name RC Viewer as having the program code changes that allow viewers to be more easily named. Being able to better control channel names cleans up some install problems as well as data tracking.

Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-49
Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-49

I am taking what I hear Oz Linden saying about not wanting to get into the details of this change to mean it is complex with Linden preferences driving some of the changes. As long as things work better, none of the detail matters to me.

The Maintenance RC Viewer had a really bad crash rate. It has been withdrawn and users pushed to other viewer versions. If you installed it and disabled automatic updates, you need to replace it. 

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