Firestorm

Second Life News 2018 w22

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Monday was a US holiday, Memorial Day. So, today is the Lab’s first workday this week. As of 10 AM SLT this morning there is no Deploy post. But, there is some HOT new news today. See the Other News section.

From the Server-Scripting meeting, Simon Linden: Let’s see … for server news, we had a rollback last week of the RC channels for a bug.  I think there was a post somewhere about that. We’re going to have updates out tomorrow that have that fixed … and possibly another release that has a few other items in it.  It’s all internal changes, as far as I know.

Concrete studied under orange light - 3
Concrete studied under orange light – 3

Viewers

Second Life Love Me Render Viewer version 5.1.5.515528 – This an update from the previous version 5.1.4.514788 released in week #16.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.1.5.515527 – Last updated in week #21.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.3.513006 – Last updated in week #10.

Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.1.4.515420 – Released week #16.

Second Life Project Bakes On Mesh Viewer version 5.1.3.513936 – Last updated in week #14. 

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Second Life News 2018 w21

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Servers

There are no updates to the main or RC channels this week. No restarts are planned either.

The updates are still in testing over in ADITI. Mazidox Linden expects to have more information by Thursday’s Server Beta UG meeting.

Viewers

A new main viewer came out late last week. The Maintenance version 5.1.4.515016 is now the default viewer.

Looking back, I didn’t write up much about this version. There are a load of changes and improvements in this version. Check the release notes for ALL the details.

ᴋɪʟʟ ᴏᴜʀ ᴡᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ...
ᴋɪʟʟ ᴏᴜʀ ᴡᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ…

The interesting changes are…

In the Appearance editor we are supposed to have a Wear Only This Outfit. I can’t find any such choice.

Dialog in inventory

Temporary attachments can now be removed. I think the change is these temps now show in the WEARING tab so they can be selected and detached.

Some login problems have been fixed and error messages improved.

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Second Life News 2018 w19

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Servers

The main channel updated to version #18.04.30.515008, this is the version that hopefully improves… not fixes, region crossings. Specifically, “Updates to simulator communication protocols aimed at improving region crossings and teleports.”

Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum all get the #18.05.07.515224 version. This is the version preparing for the name change feature by adding scripting functions to LSL.

New LSL Functions:

Seems some regions are getting two restarts today. I suspect that is somewhat common.

It's your move, pawn.
It’s your move, pawn.

Simon Linden tells us, “…the servers are now doing a better job tracking all the attachments and objects you may be sitting on [when crossing a region].   The goal is to know when the region thinks that’s all done, and the viewer acknowledges it.  If that doesn’t happen, it can do better fixing it. 

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Second Life News 2018 w07

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Servers

Monday Caleb Linden posted the Deploys notice. The main channel is getting a restart. But will continue to run the same server version, #18.01.17.511913. The restarts are said to have started rolling across the grid at 3AM PT.

Blue Steel may get a new package Wednesday. The Deploys notice says they have not yet decided.

Heart Shaped
Heart Shaped

Le Tigre and Magnum will continue to run #18.01.17.511913, the package they ran last week. I doubt they will get a restart…

Viewers

The main viewer is now 5.1.1.512121. This is the upgrade with fixes to the voice features. The previous version 5.1.0.511732 released in week #2.

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Second Life News 2018 w05

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Servers

The main channel is now running version #18.01.17.511913. The version ran on all three RC channels last week. It is reported in the wiki as having Internal Changes. Mazidox Linden described it at the Server Beta UG as, “This week we promoted a couple of things to RC on Agni including DRTSIM-367 (internal fixes) and a version of the service that handles avatar bakes, built with the new version of our OS.”

Shhhhh
Shhhhh

The bake service is not actually a simulator change. It is a change in a backend service. The server and service have to work together. So, there is probably some simulator change. But, maybe just in which API it uses to bake the avatar.

The Linux Operating System (OS) the Lab uses in its server gets updated every so often. They have been (are?) in the process of another OS update.

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Firestorm Updates – Finally

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Firestorm released version 5.0.11.53634. The download is here.

Controversy and Confusion

There are some controversial changes in this version of the viewer. I think the controversy is from confusion which is from ignorance.

The issue is about the Level of Detail (LoD) setting RenderVolumeLODFactor found in the debug settings (Ctrl-Alt-D=Menu Advanced->Debug Settings). The Firestorm Team has explained why they are making the change. See LOD and The Upcoming Firestorm Release The What and Why. It gets all technical, but it is an accurate description of how SL works.

Gate Of Hell
Gate Of Hell

The TL:DR is that high RenderVolumeLODFactor settings have your computer spending time drawing complex things which are so far away they only take up one or two pixels on your screen. Does it matter if a jacker has a dozen buttons if the whole jacket is so far way it can be drawn in 4 pixels and is just a tiny tiny spot on your screen? If you can’t see the buttons, why draw them? LoD is about making these optimizations and providing better performance.

Doing all the useless drawing of thousands of pixels to average them down to 4 pixels for your screen lags your render process and slows the SL system because all that detail has to be downloaded. Dumb move.

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