#SL News 3 Week 39

There was no CCIIUG meeting this week. I think that happened because of login problems on Tuesday.

Test Clothes

Oz Linden has received a couple of clothing items for testing the Mesh Deformer. We need more items submitted. To submit items check out the original request for test clothes is: Mesh Garments needed for testing deformer. If you know someone that is making mesh clothes, ask them to submit something.

If the Contribution Agreement is holding you back, you can put items for testing into the Market Place (L$0). If you choose to go that way, include the viewer version information of the viewer used to make the upload in the item description. (Help -> About…) Then send a link to Oz Linden.

These items need to be free so that other residents can get them and use them for their testing. The CA is required so that the Lab can hand out the test items. If you are handing them out, the CA is NOT needed.

Viewer 3.4.x

The current Linden release viewer 3.4.0 version does not seem to have the memory leak the Lab has been chasing down. It is unclear whether the 3.4.1 beta viewer has the leak or not. It’s crash rate is high. Oz Linden says they are having problems reproducing the crashes, meaning there is no a single thing that crashes the viewer. Without a step-by-step to a crash it makes it hard to track down the problem.

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Server Side Avatar Baking

In the Open Source User Group meeting Oz Linden provided an explanation of how the new avatar baking system will work and some of the ideas they have for implementing it. I’ve added in the description of how things work now to provide contrast. I’ve covered this topic before. But, there is new information here.

Baking… Image by: Edsel L @ Flickr

Oz Linden pointed out that a large part of the viewer side avatar baking process is done in the local computer’s video card. Since there are so many different cards, driver, and driver versions the result is inconsistent. By moving the process to the server side the results will be consistent.

As it is now, users with the exact same input (think clothes) can get difference results (look different in the same clothes). Once this moves to the server side, the same inputs will produce the same result.

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Another Deformer Update

With the Mesh Deformer project near completion several people are much more into testing, using, and complaining about  the Mesh Deformer. Early adopters are definitely jumping in. That doesn’t mean there are enough test clothes submitted. We still need more. But, those of us trying out the Deformer are bringing up our special cases. Avoid being left out, make sure your stuff works, get involved.

The Design Model – Default Avatar

I am interested in using the latest Deformer Project viewer (see the left column for a link to the download) to make tight fitting skirts. I and others have run into problems. That has increased chatter in the JIRA STORM-1716, which I covered a couple of days ago in: #SL Mesh Deformer Discussion. Discussion is continuing.

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#SL News 2 Week 39

Some topics that did not make the previous post follow.

Interest List and…

Andrew Linden is still working on the Interest List. This is the list of things you are looking at and the viewer needs to render. New Interest List code went up on the Ahern, Balkanski ,and Beirne regions in ADITI.

A girls gotta shop…

One of the changes coming from the Interest List work is the removal of the server side code that runs Particle Clouds. Those are the clouds that were used in SL before Windlight came into use. So, once the Interest List code rolls out the particle clouds will be gone for good.

Removing that old cloud code will free up a few server cycles and take a small bit of data out of the bandwidth pipeline.

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#SL News 1 Week 39

Deformer Project Viewer

I got the Mesh Deformer project Viewer 3-4-1-264215 on 9/2. I’ve been playing with it on and off since then.

Today (9/25) I checked and I find that a new project viewer is on the download site: Second Life 3-4-1-265137 Project Viewer Deformer.

So, if you are playing with the Deformer, be sure you have the latest version.

Server Scripting 9/25

Kokua Viewer

There is a new release of Kokua out: Kokua:Release Notes/3.3.4 Grid Manager

As best I can tell, there is no Mac version. There are Linux and Windows versions.

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