Second Life 2015 Review: August 2015

This is the eighth of probably 12 articles reviewing mostly the technical changes made in Second Life™. Click the Annual Review in the TAGS drop down to the right or at the bottom of the post to see the other months.

...Under The Sea...

…Under The Sea…

Review: August 2015

Brooke Linden announced migration to the Viewer Managed Marketplace had completed. This was announced at the first Third Party Developers’ meeting in August.  Continue reading

Second Life 2015 Review: July 2015

This is the seventh of probably 12 articles reviewing the technical changes in Second Life™. Click Annual Review in the TAGS drop down to the right to see the other months.

Review: July 2015

This is the month Experiences Tools were partially released, actually 6/30. The release was to premium members only. Anyone could participate in an Experience, but only Premium Members could build one. Details here.

Kerri Fegte posted about photography tools one can use with the SL viewer. See: Second Life: Photography Tools.

This month Lance announced that he no longer can take the time to keep the Dolphin Viewer updated. Continue reading

Second Life 2015 in Review: June 2015

This is the sixth of may be 12 articles about 2015. – To find the entire collection of Second Life™ Year End Review articles look in the right-hand column for the TAG’s drop down and click: Annual Review.

12.06.15 - Summer Fun

12.06.15 – Summer Fun

Second Life in Review: June 2015

This month we got a lot of information about Project Sansar. Several interviews were given and recorded to video. Links near the end.  Continue reading

Second Life 2015 in Review: April 2015

This is the fourth of may be 12 articles about 2015. – To find the collection of Year End Review articles look in the right-hand column and click the TAG: Annual Review.

Second Life in Review: April 2015

Of course the first thing of the month is April Fool’s Day. The Lab released their new viewer made just for the day: Introducing 2DSS Mode for Second Life.

Ballons

Ballons – April 2015

In April Strawberry Singh posted Mean Comments Meme and an impactful image. I think this post was a highlight of the year. My thoughts. Strawberry’s post became controversial. See: Philosophy at Easter – Mean Comments Continue reading

Second Life 2015 in Review: March 2015

Wow, I pumped out 96 posts in the month of March. This is the third of may be 12 articles about 2015. – To find the collection of Year End Review articles look in the right-hand column and click the TAG: Annual Review.

March 2015 – 96 Articles

This month the Lab was working on rolling out AISv3. Problems were biting people as the transition was being made. Problems ranged from render fails to not being able rez from inventory.

「Hey Ho, Let's Go」

「Hey Ho, Let’s Go」 – Taken in March 2015

March viewers were;

  • RC Login Viewer version 3.7.25.298971 – This one promoted to main release in March.
  • RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.26.299443
  • RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.26.299845
  • RC Experience Viewer version 3.8.0.299338
  • Project Avatar Layer Limits Viewer – This was the start of the project to change how we use layers on the avatar. Basically it changes the limit of how many textures one can wear on a given layer and sets the total limit at 60.
  • RC Hover Viewer version 3.7.26.299635 – The new HOVER Height feature made it to the main release viewer in March.
  • RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.26.299443
  • Project Importer Viewer version 3.7.25.298441
  • Project Layer Limits Viewer version 3.7.26.299805
  • Project Managed Marketplace Viewer version 3.7.25.298865
  • Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296

Word in March was that a viewer change to improve teleporting  and crossing into another region was coming. Also that soon viewers will not install on Windows XP 32 or 64 bit machines. Continue reading

Second Life 2015 in Review: February 2015

This is the second of may be twelve articles on what was happening this past year, 2015.

February 2015 – 43 Articles

The RC server channels got an update to fix a teleport problem SL Go users were having.

Maison de L'amitié

Maison de L’amitié

Viewer-wise we were being told it would be some time before we saw Webkit abandoned and a move to Chromium Embedded Framework. Well, it is December, almost a year later, and we are seeing the change in RC Second Life Valhalla Viewer version 4.0.0.308641. So, it was some time…

The first week of Feb the main viewer was version 3.7.25-299021. The RC viewers were:

  • RC Experience Viewer version 3.8.0.298001
  • RC Login Viewer version 3.7.25.298971
  • Project Hover Height Viewer version 3.7.25.298129
  • Project Importer Viewer version 3.7.25.298441 – Getting lots of negative feedback and bug reports.
  • Project Managed Marketplace Viewer version 3.7.25.298865
  • Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296
  • Project Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.25.298862 – This went mainstream this month. It is the viewer built with the new compiler.

In February we were noticing a slowing of updates, server and viewer, but improved communication between the Lab and users. We were also noticing slower rendering and more items not rendering.

In mid Feb we saw an RC of Login Viewer version 3.7.25.298971 release. The Lab was A-B testing login screens.

The new versions of the viewers compiled with VS2013 will be driving Windows XP users to other viewers. The Discussion on dropping support for XP had yet to heat up.

More work on and testing of Group Chat was in progress. HUD’s were detaching after teleport. Oz Linden spoke about how bad an idea cache clearing is. See: YouTube Oz on Cache Clearing @ 1:01:20.

Render Muting was in QA. We know it now as Avatar Complexity Information, which as of December was still in the RC viewer stage.

Week 6 saw the conclusion of the 2015 planning meeting. We heard nothing about what was decided. However, excitement within the Lab was said to be high. We already saw the Lab’s post on recent improvements to Second Life; Hover Height, Notifications, Mesh Import, VMM, Graphics Settings Presets, and developer tools.

Gaia Clary was asking for feedback on AvaStar.

The No Link> error started showing up.

Astrid Kaufmat was writing about Fitted Mesh not fitting and the need for a new avatar. At the time I thought there was little chance of a new avatar. But, Project Bento (Dec 2015) has proven me wrong.

A Freeze Frame bug started causing problems. Freeze Frame is a feature in the Snapshot panel. Closing the panel with Freeze enabled froze your world. The only escape was a relog.

This was the month OSGrid came back online after L O N G time offline. Later in the month more assets were recovered.

Net Neutrality and Chinese hacking was all up in the news. See: Net Neutrality Explained

Road to VR was on about social VR. Lots of people in the SL community, including me, were blogging about VR.

A handy work-around for tweaking a region’s Windlight settings was revealed by Honour McMillan. See: Changing Windlight & HDR. Designing Worlds did a series on photography with Strawberry Singh, Honour McMillan and Wildstar Beaumont. See: Second Life Photography Tips.

MayaStar was released. The Maya side of Blender’s AvaStar tool.

Shug Maitland was blogging her wondering whether SL1 could compete with SL2 (Sansar). Later in the month Oz Linden was speaking on the same point. See: Second Life Continuing … for real…

Blender released a set of free 3D brushes. See: Blender 3D Brushes – Free.

Avatar render cost continued to be a big topic in the SL Blogosphere. Avatar Render Cost 2015-07

This month we started to hear more about Windows 10.

The gamer’s blog MASSIVELY closed. The employees behind it came back with Massively Overpowered a few weeks later.