Second Life and Virtual Worlds
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.
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 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.
There no rollout to the main channel this week. None of the release candidates made it through testing.
Blue Steel and Le Tigre will get a new package for testing. This package addresses the disconnection issue many have been experiencing. (BUG-2564) This is the one where numerous avatars in a region would suddenly be disconnected. It also included LSL scripts using HTTP connection being disconnected too.
Plus there is a crash mode fix.
Magnum will continue to run the package from last week: The Interest List improvement for faster rendering of a never be for visited region. The only change to this package is the adding of the disconnect-fix-code also running on Steel and Tigre.
The Lindens have announced a contest as part of the celebration of SL10B. The first place prize is a Homestead Region for four months. Second and Third place winners will get a homestead region for 2 months.
You’ll find the rules and guidelines here: SL10B Celebration Snapshot Contest.
No one on the Linden side is saying WHEN we might see SSA (Server Side Appearance baking) roll out. Today at the Server Beta meeting we found one reason it is taking longer than anyone would like. I think the Lindens are ready for SSA to rollout. But, they have to get problems fixed and they have a dandy one.
SSA is in testing on the Preview Grid (ADITI). You can go into Testy Sandbox and Lagland to try it out. But, be warned, read the rest of this article first.
JIRA SUN-74 – Apparent avatar skin and eye texture asset corruption with Server Side Appearance.
This bug is about SSA corrupting textures your avatar is wearing. Skin and eyes are definitely affected. It appears any Mod-OK skin is at risk.
Today Linden Lab posted an update on the Sunshine Project, which includes Server Side Appearance (SSA) (baking). You can see it here: Faster Avatar Loading on the Horizon.
This is a warning that failing to update your viewer is going to be a problem. In my mind it seems they are somewhat downplaying the aspect that this update is going to cripple users that fail to update. Those that like the old 1.23 viewer and older versions of Phoenix are going to need to change to a newer viewer. Singularity seems to be the viewer of choice for those users.