Scripting & Server News Week 42

by

For the release candidate on Le Tigre we have some new information that comes from the wiki release notes just recently updated. Some of those are:

Havok Update

The Havok Physics Engine updates to version 2012.1 in the release candidate. In week 35 I reported that this version was coming. At the time we had just updated to 2010.x, I think. This update enables Havok’s terrain optimized that simplifies the physics shape of the terrain for improved performance. This feature can be disabled by region owners and estate managers with the Region Debug Console command “set optimize_terrain false“.

Havok Physics

Some are reporting vehicle crossing are slower.

llGetSimStats

llGetSimStats() has yet to show up in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL)  pages of the wiki. Fortunately the release notes say:

Currently, this function accepts only [[SIM_STAT_PCT_CHARS_STEPPED]] as its parameter, which returns the % of Pathfinding characters skipped each frame, averaged over the last minute.  The returned value corresponds to the “Characters Updated” stat in the viewer’s Statistics Bar.

Read more

US ambassador: Internet fee proposal gaining momentum

by

Treaties are moving forward to give control of the Internet to the UN. U.S.  Amb. Terry Kramer is quoted by Brendan Sasso.

Brendan Sasso  in and article on The Hill says, “The proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association could force websites like Google, Facebook and Netflix to pay fees to network operators around the world.

…

Democrats and Republicans in the United States are united against proposals to increase international control of the Internet. Congress passed a non-binding resolution earlier this year urging the United States delegation to ‘promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today.’”

Mostly countries that are totalitarian in Africa and Arab nations are pushing this. But, poor countries see the fees as a source of income. I suspect some want to extend Sharia Law to control the Internet, something women everywhere should oppose.

Read more

New Info from the Firestorm Team

by

No not a viewer release. Jessica has posted on the Firestorm blog about what is going on with Firestorm and their development effort. See: Status update.

New Firestorm Region in OSGrid

In my Kokua article: Kokua Beta Status & Review, I wrote about the rates that developers were releasing versions of their viewers. Jessica is explaining their release philosophy and how that will be changing.

Included is a list of coming features in the next release. Some we have seen in preliminary versions in other TPV’s. I expect the Firestorm release to have features with more polish and improved user interface.

The Team is also focusing on stability. Firestorm is currently the most stable viewer used with Second Life™. Jessica says they have even more stability fixes.

Read more

#SL News 1 Week 42

by

This Tuesday we got a roll to the main channel. This is the package that was on Blue Steel. This is the code to improve performance for Large Groups. It is not the Large Group Editing changes that Baker has made. Those changes are in a package still stuck in QA.

It has been quite since the roll out. That usually means things are working as expected.

Sever-Scripting Meeting September 2012

Magnum

Is going to continue to run the same package it has had for the last couple of weeks. This is a package that adapts the simulator to the new hardware. It contains various configuration changes for the Denebian OS running in the region servers. I have no information whether this is identical to last week or some configuration settings are changing. Whatever the case, it is expected users won’t see any difference.

Read more

Kokua Beta Status & Review

by

Today I see a post on the Kokua/Imprudence blog. NickyP wrote about the problems added when a developer moves from a Beta release to a production release. They are the reason that the Kokua viewer is staying a Beta Viewer.

The Team is able to develop faster because they keep it a Beta release viewer, which is a good thing.

Kokua/Imprudence Viewers

Back when the Viewer Policies changed some developers were warning that development would slow down because of all the stuff they were required to do. Now developers are finding their way around some of the more tedious requirements.

Kokua and Exodus both release numerous beta versions. They release few production releases.

The Firestorm viewer is infrequently released as it mostly comes out only in production releases. The typical beta release for Firestorm is to their QA people or maybe we should call them beta testers. Beta releases when they are released are versions that are intended to be a future production version. Some other TPV Dev’s are releasing beta versions that are much more in the line of experimental viewers that have fewer restictions.

Read more

Rumors

by

There are always a load of rumors floating around Second Life™. Inara Pey has a dandy on her blog in: Rod Humble hints at more virtual worlds in LL’s future.

I think it is worth your time to read. Inara noticed that Rod used the plural when speaking of investing in virtual worlds. She and I would probably not go any farther with that speculation. BUT…

Rod Humble commented on her blog and stated that the use of the plural was in fact deliberate.

NOW THAT is interesting. Check out the article.