Second Life ACI is SO Screwed…

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This week has seen discussion on the ARC/ACI values and how broken they are. See the SL Forum thread: Rigged mesh LoD bug. I knew ARC/ACI weren’t all that accurate. But, I thought they were reasonable comparisons. I still believe once up on a time they were. But, in light of this new information I can’t prove that.

ARC = Avatar Render Cost
ACI = Avatar Complexity Index

Comparing ACI in LL, FS, and BD viewers

The purpose of ACI is to influence users and designers to buy and create more efficient mesh content. Something along the lines of Consumer Reports, but free and in your face.

A couple of things have happened that has not only changed ACI’s usefulness but distorted it and pushed us away from its goal. Possibly even making it counterproductive Continue reading →

Second Life News 2018 w/#35

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Servers

Yesterday I couldn’t make the user group meeting, RL lunch meeting. So, I’m relying on Inara’s coverage and the Deploys thread for what came out in that meeting.

Searching for Light in the darkness

Searching for Light in the darkness

There was no roll planned for the main channel. My main channel home region did not get a restart. It continues to run version #18.08.10.518612.

AFAIK, the RC channels did restart all updating to version #18.08.24.519036. This is some backend change needed to get the new land auction system working. Continue reading →

Second Life News from Third-Party Dev UG 2018 w#34

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By meeting time, the Voice RC viewer had promoted to the main viewer, 5.1.8.518593. They have already found one new bug. Still, voice should be better on this version.

The RC version of the Animesh was waiting for a merge with voice, but, in the meeting, Kyle Linden told us it had passed Q&A and should be up on the Alternate Viewers page by the time you read this.

Let me tell you the story ♫♫

Let me tell you the story ♫♫

So, you may see some frozen characters scooting around the grid, which is what you see when you do not have an Animesh viewer and look at Animesh.

The Love Me Render RC viewer needs to update with voice. We’ll likely see that this week, 35.

Next week another Maintenance RC viewer w/bug fixes should pop up on the page. Continue reading →

Every Pixel – Artificial Intelligence is how smart?

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I enjoy looking through the images appearing on Flickr. Also, in a few threads in the Second Life™ Forum. One of the more fun threads that just popped up is My photo has a 97.7% chance of being awesome. Of course it does…

We can blame or congratulate Bree Giffen for starting the thread. Patch Linden has gotten in the thread, proving Lindens do have a sense of humor.

So… am I cute? Well, I’m not overwhelming the A.I.

The point of EveryPixel.com is to evaluate images using A.I., Artificial Intelligence. As you scroll through the SL Forum thread you realize it is either a stupid A.I. or using a different criteria than we do for our appreciation of images in threads like How does your avatar look today ? and The VaNiTy ThReAd. The Every Pixel site does explain what they are evaluating on. Part of the rating and apparently a significant part is the technical aspects of the image; contrast, vibrance, composition… Continue reading →

Second Life: Ebbe to Talk…

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About two hours ago the Lindens posted: Town Hall Event with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg – Sept 13.

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg will be appearing at a “Town Hall” chat session
Thursday, September 13th 2018 at 9:30 a.m. (SLT/Pacific)

There will be a Q&A and you can post questions for consideration in that part of the meeting here: “September 2018 – A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.”

The live in-world location has not yet been decided on. Closer to the event they will make a location announcement.

Firestorm Fundraiser

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The Firestorm Team provides the most popular viewer in Second Life™. They provide a new user area training people new to SL. They provide and maintain a JIRA, website, and wiki. There is a cost for all of these things.

Firestorm Logo

About 2-years ago they ran a fundraiser and have been paying for stuff from that effort. Now those funds are running low. It is time for a new fundraiser. See the article Gacha! A Firestorm Fund Raiser!

The Gacha event is happening at the Firestorm Sandbox. You can make a donation in the marketplace and you can pick up a Firestorm Jacket while you are there.

Or… you can make donations directly to Kio Feila in-world.

These funds go toward paying expenses. All labor is from volunteers.

Help out.

Second Life News 2018 w34

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Servers

The main channel will update to version #18.08.10.518612. This version will allow notices you neither accept nor decline to hang around until the next login.

Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum channels will continue to run version #18.08.10.518612. No rolls.

And no Server-Scripting UG meeting this week.

Ceka Genesis

Ceka Genesis

Viewers

The main viewer is version 5.1.7.517973 released in week #32.

Second Life Animesh Viewer version 6.0.0.518579 – Released in week #33.

Second Life Bugsplat Viewer version 5.1.8.518305 – Week #32.

Second Life Love Me Render Viewer version 5.1.8.518751 – New this week. This version focuses on Rendering fixes to the Viewer. Release Notes

Second Life Voice Viewer version 5.1.8.518593 – This is a new update to version 5.1.8.518310, which was released in week #32.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.6.515934 – Last updated in week #10.

Second Life Project Bakes On Mesh Viewer version 5.1.7.518013 – Released in week #32.

Second Life Project EAM Viewer version 5.2.0.518362 – Released in week #33. This is the Estate Access Management viewer.

Other News

Hamlet at New World Notes points us to a job listing that suggests the Lab is considering developing a viewer for iOS and Android. See Linden Lab Creating IOS & Android Versions Of SL, Job Listing Suggests. The job listing is here: Senior Mobile App Dev.

Some points in the listing lead to speculation the iOS and Android support would be a server side render streamed to the devices. A Bright Canopy sort of thing. If that is the direction, would it be a monthly charged service or a Premium benefit?

Second Life and the Future of Apple Users

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For SL users there is the Apple question, will Second Life™ run on Apple? Or… continue to run on Apple?

In June of this year Apple announced its discontinuing support of OpenGL after macOS 10.14 Mojave (scheduled for release Sept 2018), the core aspect of SL’s render engine. It will take a couple of years for Apple to phase it out. But, updates and support officially stop now. For some time support has been really bad.

● 1325 Colorful Disaster

They explained their reasoning when some game developers declared they would stop making games for Apple.

The reasons;

  • OpenGL was designed 25 years ago.
  • Core architecture is from the beginning days of 3D graphics.
  • Designed is based on outdated thinking.
  • OpenGL is a legacy tool with updates ‘tacked’ on.
  • Hardware GPU work flow has changed.
  • Never designed for multi-threading.
  • Today’s rendering is asynchronous.

On the PC side of things OpenGL is still supported. We can’t know for how long. Khronos, OpenGL’s developer, has introduced Vulkan. (See: State of Graphics: DirectX 12 & Vulkan – 4/2016) Development is exciting and popular. The group is on the forefront of some interesting tech. But, I don’t know that it will be helpful for SL. Continue reading →