Second Life News Update Week 32

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I’m a little behind getting a Week 32 news update out today. But, other things to play with and write about.

Metareality’s Gianna is busy with something, so there has been no podcast for the last 2 weeks. The podcasts were our major source of first hand news on the Mesh Deformer. So, we have no clue where we are with this project.

Main Channel Roll Out

We have had lots of misinformation about this roll out and a load of misunderstanding. Fridays meeting of the Server/Scripting group got some more information out on the updates.

Server-Scripting UG Meeting

Andrew Linden tells there are a couple of things that crash regions running the new PathFinding/Havok 2012.1 software.  Falcon Linden has fixes that are being added to the server maintenance package. Those should be on an RC this coming Wednesday.

The two problems are rare, random, and not easily exploited by griefers or so it seems.

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#SL Vehicle Work-Around

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I found a work-around for some of the vehicle problems in the SL Forum. MB Robonaught wrote:

While many of the problems with vehicles used on Pathfinder have been addressed to help with older created cars, there remains a few issues that need serious attention for newer Mesh cars. As per SVC-8048 I have discovered that if a builder uses at least 4 contact points with linden ground where all 4 are set to Convex hull the car will not sink. A single prim does not appear to have the buoyancy to ride above the edge of the land no matter what the size of the prim.

For those that run race tracks, we’ve found that volume detect is handled in a much different way. When a collision occurs between a physical vehicle and a prim that uses llVomumeDetect prim, size matters. For example if a prim that measures 0.5m x 1.0m x 10.0m is used it will randomly trigger a collision event (PATHBUG-156) making the car suddenly jump or veer off to one side. A fix for this for now is to make the prims as small as possible, such as using a 0.05m x 0.05m x 10.0m prim size instead of the above. Another option is to drive over instead of through the prim. (Reference)

My friends that work with vehicles are experimenting to see what works. So, I’m not testing vehicles. I can fly and don’t really need a vehicle. I know for many the various vehicle experiences in SL are a primary reason to be here.

Second Life Traffic Numbers

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For land and shop owners this is a serious problem. With the roll out of the latest update lots of people are seeing the problem.

Traffic Count in SL Search – enlarge

JIRA’s

SVC-7458 – Traffic counts borked across (All or Many Regions) – See 1. Second Life Viewer – VWR VWR-27621 Drop In Traffic Calculations. Nov 2011. Short not much information.

SVC-7459 – Drop In Traffic Calculations. Nov 2011. Updated Aug 2012. This seems to be the most active JIRA on the topic.

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More on What is Second Life

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I was talking to a friend about being at a concert while programming. That thoroughly confused them. I needed something to show them for a quick explanation. Trying to explain Second Life™ with words is pointless, in my experience.

What is Second Life?

The Lab has a good web page up that serves the purpose of explaining SL. While it falls short, the videos there are far better than my words and verbal efforts. I can just say, “Second Life is a second fun only life.” Send them to the web page and they seem to get a closer idea of what SL is. But, I have yet to see any answer to the question “What is Second Life?” that actually works for everyone.

Check out: What is Second Life?

 

Pathfinding Costs

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This posting showed up on the SL forum:

BlackMagi Darkwatch wrote:

So, I created a simple character using the new LL pathfinding functions and watched it merrily wander around – I won’t be leaving the object out though as my simple 1 prim cube had a LE of 15!  Not sure if the LE values are going to tweaked – I do hope so as I feel that is way too costly. 

All pathfinding characters have a fixed physics weight of 15. Adding prims will not cause this weight to go up and the weight is not affected by the physics shape type parameter. Streaming and script costs are computed are for any other object and the total land impact remains the max of all weights. So yes, a simple 1 prim cube has a LI of 15, but a much more complex character may still only have a LI of 15 (unless dominated by streaming or scripts, in which case the physics weight is irrelevant).

Falcon Linden

So, there is a surprising cost to the AI Characters. At least it surprised me.

The Lindens have been gearing the SL system to associate costs with the resources used. From outside the Lab we have no way to know if the cost is equitable or not. Fortunately SL runs from a free market and users are free to use AI Characters or not. That won’t make the entitlement folks happy, but that’s life.

Adding Prims to Control Navmesh – Click Enlarge

I have a 2-prim and 1-sculpty AI Character. My edit panel shows it as 1 object and 3 Land Impact. I can’t get the More Info to show the Physics cost. That is probably and issue with the development viewer.

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Exodus Viewer Release Beta 8 (12.08.09b) Review

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Exodus has new version of their viewer out. If you like Exodus, this is a must have update. I think that this release is labeled a Beta as they plan to quickly provide a main release with the New Pathfinding Tools. I am guessing they are just waiting on the Lab to OK it. Or may be there is some last minute Havok Licensing stuff going on. So, the tools may already be programmed in.

Exodus Viewer – Exodus Preferences

It gets confusing which version is a test version and which is a production release version. The idea with production releases is they are feature stable and intended for primary use by Second Life™ residents. Production viewers only have approved features. Test or Beta viewers can have whatever feature set a developer is experimenting with. This release had some of the experimental features taken out, like the Mesh Deformer. So, I find the Beta designation a bit odd, but it makes a sort of sense.

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