Viewer Evolution User Group/Archive/2011-05-20

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08:01  Wolfpup  hey Oz
  Ima Mechanique  Twisted, my solution is to revert to the 2.6.9-start tag until someone more knowledgeable fixes it ;-)
  draconis.neurocam  hello oz
  Ardy Lay  "doesn't affect LL-released versions. " -- Why not? OpenJPEG vs. KDU?
  Marianne McCann  Hi Oz
  Ardy Lay  Hi Oz
  Oz Linden  Good morning everyone (or whatever part of the day or night it is for you)
  Wolfpup  Ima the OS comunity might have to get the stub functional to have a 'fix'
08:02  Oz Linden  what doesn't affect our versions?
  The Raptor  just turned morning here :)
  Ardy Lay  convexdecomposition stub?
  Jonathan  vwr-25815
  Oz Linden  ah
  Wolfpup  nod ardy
  Ima Mechanique  the ERROR: LLViewerTextureList::addImageToList: ASSERT (mInitialized) on startup
08:03  Oz Linden  have to track down what's happening with that after this meeting
  Wolfpup  vwr-25815 < so the jira helper posts the link again
  Twisted Laws  it happens before llviewerwindow is initialized where the init is called
  Oz Linden  I think it's assigned to me, actually :-(
  Wolfpup  it is Oz
  Ima Mechanique  hmm, JIRA helper is too smart Wolf
  Jonathan  Snowstorm has loaned 2 devs to the mesh team
08:04  Wolfpup  VWR-25815
    looks like it ima
  Ardy Lay  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-25815
  JIRA-helper  VWR-25815 Crash during viewer startup: LLViewerTextureList::addImageToList
  Oz Linden  anyway... to our agenda ....
  Ima Mechanique  jira helper has a memory. better than mine sometimes ;-)
08:05  Oz Linden  We'll go down to do the New Topics first, but before we do, I have a teaser for you....
  Jonathan  URL of agenda?
  Oz Linden  my first SL video recording (well, the first one I'm showing to anyone)
  The Raptor  grats
  Oz Linden  agenda: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Evolution_User_Group
08:06    This is a video showing crossing between two regions (this one and Hippo Hollow) with different Windlight settings : http://lindens.lindenlab.com/oz/WL_region_crossing.mov
08:07  Jonathan  ooo
  Qie  nice!
08:08  Marianne McCann  Heh... opening that URL in the internal browser shows a Version 1.x style play/pause button. Very cool stuff, though!
  Oz Linden  the actual region boundary is roughly half way across that bridge, so there's a small delay
  Ima Mechanique  wow, see that moon move
  Oz Linden  each setting transitions smoothly but quickly
  Ima Mechanique  looks good
08:09  Ardy Lay  I have mentioned those old buttons but kinda got ignored.
  Marianne McCann  Much nicer than I might have suspected
  Oz Linden  so a moon that's up will quickly set (as in that video), etc
  Jonathan  well done
  Ardy Lay  I like the transition.
  Oz Linden  We're getting pretty close to being able to put out a project viewer
08:10  Jonathan  How many regions will have this enabled when that project viewer goes out?
  Ardy Lay  Currently, moving form estate to estate with different time of day is an abrupt change.
  Oz Linden  there are some schedule uncertainties, partly because I loaned a couple of developers to another team
08:11    Actually, all regions already support it in theory, but of course most have only the default settings
    the project viewer will display any settings from the region (using the region settings is the default, which you can override as now)
08:12    we're re-doing the interface for editting WL settings so that it's more logically organized and a little simpler
  Ardy Lay  Windlight settings are per region, not per parcel?
08:13  Oz Linden  per region is all that the servers support
    per parcel would be pretty jarring if you were moving around
  Ardy Lay  Yeah, I suppose the per region setting is actually an estate setting then so us mainland dwellers are out of luck.
08:14  Wolfpup  unless the Linden PW's people come through and change it
  Oz Linden  It does require Estate Manager rights, which you don't get on mainland
  Ardy Lay  Yeah, lots of stuff we don't get even though we have 4 regions.
08:15  Oz Linden  whether or not the Moles will mess with the settings on mainland is anyones guess :-)
  Qie  umm... by any chance, are the estate windlight settings assets that might be exchanged? such that parcel owners (mainland or estate) could "offer them as suggestions" to visitors in some coherent way
08:16  Marianne McCann  I wish, Qie.
  Oz Linden  The first version we release won't support an exchangable setting, but it is something we are designing to support later
  Qie  okay. that's reassuring.
  Oz Linden  we just don't want to hold up a release for that
  Qie  right! :)
08:17  Oz Linden  anyway.... watch this space for other news on that....
    So ... to New Topics
    VWR-4018 Texture animations ignore repeats per face (llTextureAnim())
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4018

VWR-4018 Texture animations ignore repeats per face (llTextureAnim())

08:19  Ardy Lay  Yes, old bug is still annoying bug.
08:20    I ran into that when trying to make an animated "neon" sign for a bar.
  Qie  (huh. This explains why lots of my old stuff broke, and why my independently stumbled-upon "workaround" was so flaky)
  Ardy Lay  I had to recreate the texture and give up image crispness.
08:21  Oz Linden  I had not seen this one before.
  Ardy Lay  THe result ended up so blurry we scrapped it and did something else.
08:22  Oz Linden  It would be helpful if someone would construct an object that demos it.
  Ardy Lay  I seem to have deleted it from my inventory too.
    Hmm...
08:23  Oz Linden  If anyone knows who the Phoenix dev is that 'Toysoldier' refers to in the last comment, tell them to get in touch with me
  104  is asking in Phoenix developer chat now.
08:24  Tonya Souther  is asking in Phoenix developer chat now.
08:25  Oz Linden  I've acked it and moved it to the product backlog, but if someone's going to work on it, then I'll move it to STORM and import the fix when ready
08:26    VWR-17022 Clicking The Clock should bring up events happening right now.
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17022

VWR-17022 Clicking on the current time in the Viewer should bring up events happening right now.

  Marianne McCann  The "Click the Clock" proposal of Crap Mariner's
  Ardy Lay  That's a two-click operatin now, right?
    Search > Events
08:27  Marianne McCann  I believe so
  Ardy Lay  Kinda gets drowned out in that damn "Paid Classifieds" mess.
  Techwolf Lupindo  I keep forgettting that SL has an event feature...
  Ardy Lay  Those clasifieds are not for events are they?
  Techwolf Lupindo  Perhaps due to having to think about it and searching for hte events search box.
  Marianne McCann  Techwolf - indeed
08:28  Oz Linden  According to the comments in the internal clone of that issue, someone is working on it.
  Jonathan  It is not clear what results clicking the clock should show -- there are so many different types that seeing them all displayed might be a bit much, unless the output floater is just a line by line display, as in v1 viewers
  Oz Linden  There are no details on how it's being done, though.
  Marianne McCann  Hmmm
08:29  Oz Linden  It's someone in the search team (which makes sense).
  Techwolf Lupindo  I remmber when I first found the event listing. Played wiht it and seen it was destroyed by the spammers advertizing there "event" sales 24/7.
  Qie  I think just bringing up the Events Search as-is would be close enough (well... assuming the whole Search UI is up for redesign now)
  Oz Linden  I'll see if I can find out more for next week.
  Ardy Lay  Yeah, the event listing in V1 was easier for me to read but LL doesn't want to hear that. My JIRA went down in FLAMES.
  Oz Linden  Don't give up hope on search...
  Jonathan  Not having 1 line per event entry is what makes v2 search hard for me -- it takes forever to scan
08:30  Marianne McCann  Thanks, Oz. Seems an easy use for what is now a dead space on the UI
  Oz Linden  STORM-942 Make texture blending deterministic to prevent terrain texture drift
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-942

STORM-942 Make texture blending deterministic to prevent terrain texture drift

08:31  Ardy Lay  Ah yes, that one makes multi-camera photoshoots really silly looking.
    "Hey look! They are not even on the same beach!"
    Hehe
  Marianne McCann  THat's something I've seen since at least '07. Ground testures are not constant, shift per viewer, and also often do not mate the "no higher than x setting an estate manager can place
    Ardy "Beach? I don't see a beach here"
08:32  Ardy Lay  Perlin noise generator at play here?
  Marianne McCann  (Which was how I first discovered the issue)
  Ardy Lay  guesses
  Oz Linden  yes, that's the issue, Ardy
  Marianne McCann  From what Igathered from Andrew, Ardy
  Qie  makes terraforming an Atoll beach, with that funky technicolor terrain, a fool's errand.
  Ardy Lay  Yeah, I probably was there when Andrew said it. I don't know what it means.
    Andrew said we need a common seed for all fiewers to use.
08:33    viewers
  Marianne McCann  Heh, me too Ardy. A known seed
  Oz Linden  It would be interesting to do some experiments with whether or not providing a seed from the region would produce stable results across different viewers
08:34    One way to do that experiment would be to temporarily add a fixed seed, then build multiple viewers with it, edit a region and see if everyone ends up seeing the same thing
  Ardy Lay  Is that seed generated within the viewer from some psudorandom elements?
08:35  Qie  internally hash the region ID to derive a stable seed?
  Oz Linden  I don't know where the current seed comes from, Ardy
    well, if a stable seed produces stable results, then we could store the seed in the region
08:36  Techwolf Lupindo  Need a consentent stable seed that doesn't changed so if regine restarts doen't cause it to look differnet all of a sudden.
  Ardy Lay  LLPerlinNoise::init(void)
    Calls rand() several times
  Oz Linden  that way, each time you edit the region you could optionally regenerate the texture map (in fact, generate a new seed) until you got one you liked, then save it
08:37    but it's not worth doing the work to store the seed unless we can determine that the results are visually at least very similar on different platforms
  Ardy Lay  Andrews also expressed a strong desire to return to using higher resolution terrain textures.
08:38  Techwolf Lupindo  Yes. Victor is very fustrated with Aggro ground textures due to that.
  Ardy Lay  SL used to have very high resolution terrain textures.
  Techwolf Lupindo  uses a few hacks to get the ground textrue to look right.
  Ardy Lay  I remember seeing screenshots from an 8 year old resident that showed them.
08:39  Marianne McCann  Ya, Ardy. They can be... disappointingly low rez at times.
  Oz Linden  If someone is interested in doing some experiments with the randomness, I'll build multi-platform viewers with it.
  Marianne McCann  Noticed that with the "grass and flowers" look we have on Livingtree now. Ends up making it looks not fully rezzed in some shots
  Oz Linden  should be an easy enough experiment to do
08:40  Marianne McCann  I'd be game on assisting, if need be. Not sure what I'd need to do, but it's bugged me long enough...
  Oz Linden  talk to me after, Marianne...
08:41  Marianne McCann  okay
  Ardy Lay  Well, when you do, watch the clouds closely. They seem to use noise too.
  Oz Linden  next: VWR-20081 "Emergency Grid Broadcast System"
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-20081

VWR-20081 Emergency Grid Broadcast System

  Marianne McCann  Ah... my greedy little idea.
08:42  Ardy Lay  Heh, not long ago somebody accidentally sent a meeting invitation to "everybody". I guess that caused some congestion and confusion. :-)
  The Raptor  couldn't that be delivered via rss?
  Marianne McCann  It would seem
    Ardy - yes. That was to Michael Linden's old office hour in Shamon
08:43  Ardy Lay  Hmm... somebody else did it too. Blondin I think.
  Marianne McCann  Likely
  Oz Linden  I'll ask Support and Ops what they think....
  Ardy Lay  And I have seen another mention of wanting grid status displayed in the viewer.
  Marianne McCann  Thanks, Oz.
  The Raptor  having in world communication for grid status updates is a good idea
08:44  Marianne McCann  I use a scripted widget in my workroom to give me that now. saves my butt to know from that when assets are going pear shaped
  The Raptor  in order to check the current grid status you either have to be in a group like awg or break immersion to check the page every so often
    ^.^
    nice
  Haravikk  Crap, majorly late as my calendar reminder didn't trigger for some reason. Anyway, I just wanted to add to VWR-4018 that any object with texture animation can demonstrate the issue so long as the animated side(s) have texture repeats other than <1.0, 1.0>. Unfortunately there's no way to trigger the issue that I know of, it just happens seemingly randomly. My best working theory is that the code for texture animations takes a copy of the values it needs to animate, and is becoming out-of-sync with the texture repeats value(s)
08:45  Oz Linden  it wouldn't be hard to prototype this, if you limited it to polling the rss feed at some frequency
  Marianne McCann  nods
  The Raptor  polling? :/
08:46  oobscure  i wonder how many "normal" users would understand / pay attention to grid status updates
  Ardy Lay  I know somebody that used to use a script to poll stats for number of users logged in and sound an alarm when it dropped sharply.
  Marianne McCann  Heh
  Ardy Lay  Unfortunately he hasn't been around since December 10th.
  Wolfpup  i have a grid watch hud for grid status
08:47  oobscure  another point is, by the time a status update is published on the blog, you usually may already have screwed up something
  Oz Linden  Whether or not polling is the right long term solution is an issue to think about, but it's certainly fine for a prototype to evaluate the user experience
  Marianne McCann  That doesnt sound like a good reason to not warn people
  The Raptor  mm
  Oz Linden  well, there are updates like rolling restarts that would benefit
08:48  Wolfpup  i wish grid status and other things was in the home tab
  The Raptor  I would suggest a different icon to an envelope though
  oobscure  Oz +1 and Wolfpup +1
  Jonathan  Yellow triangle with a !
  Ardy Lay  There is a menu bar color flag now. What is that used for?
  draconis.neurocam  the home tab is theoretically just a website, and i believe the url entry is in a debug setting, so someone could make a webpage and replace the home tab personally, theoretically at least
08:49  Oz Linden  I never pick icons... there are people who are paid to make those mistakes... uh.... decsions.
  Wolfpup  Ardy that is for when the lindens go into god mod
  The Raptor  you could also have it deliever the RSS feed if the user clicks on the symbol
  Marianne McCann  Perhaps. I'd be more keen on seeing the information given more visibility than having to head to the sidebar
  Qie  right, Marianne
  Marianne McCann  If there's a tornado heading my way, the cable box doesn't show me a warnign icon... it scrolls on my screen
  Wolfpup  you could have it flicker the home tab when there is an update
  The Raptor  yap
  oobscure  that'd be cool
08:50  Wolfpup  and there is a sound to go with it
    and iritating beep
  The Raptor  depending on the post
  Ardy Lay  Well, any event the viewer knows about it can trigger a sound and/or a notification, even an entry in chat history.
  The Raptor  ^.^
08:51  Oz Linden  great.... we don't get beaten up enough for the intrusiveness of the v2 UI, and y'all want to add flashing colors and annoying beeps?
  The Raptor  lol
  oobscure  heheheee
  The Raptor  who said flashing?
  Oz Linden  you're supposed to be helping here...
  Ardy Lay  Well, I don't know what we want yet. ;-)
  Marianne McCann  Oz - so asking for "Clipy" would be a bit much, then?
  Wolfpup  the vieewer could even post a notice to nearby chat saying to check the home tab as there is an imortant message
  oobscure  xD
  Oz Linden  just remember - I'm going to post this archive, and when people complain, I'm going to blame _you_ :-)
08:52  Jonathan  Maybe just having a noticeable icon appear would suffice
  The Raptor  lol
  Ardy Lay  WE used to get a notification in the upper right corner AND a line in local chat.
  Wolfpup  i said flicker not flashing
  The Raptor  llDialog(rss feed post1)
  oobscure  anyway i guess such a feature should be optional
08:53  Ardy Lay  Just do NOT make it something that takes UI focus and has to be ack'd.
  The Raptor  avoid flicker even, anything more than 3 changes per second can cause an epileptic siezure (according to WCAG2)
  Techwolf Lupindo  The RSS feed or whatever that gets the data should be either restricted to problems or coded in such a way that the client can only "scream" when there is actually IS a problem with the grid. No notices should trigger it, "The boy who cryed wolf" syndrome.
  Qie  a yellow "⚠" icon in the menubar would be a start. scrolling the text across the vast expanse of empty menubar space might be an option.
  Oz Linden  There are a number of possible UIs for the alerts, from local chat to various sorts of popups or overlays
  Jonathan  (Oz, Toysoldier has just added a comment to vwr-4018)
  Marianne McCann  At least turn-offable, Opensource. But don'twe want users to know where there a systemwide issue?
08:54  Oz Linden  the thing to do would be to build the backend to get the notices, and then experiment with different frontends for displaying them
  The Raptor  I think this is why Oz was saying to prototype it
  oobscure  yeah Mari, personally i'd want it and keep it enabled
  Wolfpup  i would say having it flicker @ 2/sec would be enough
  The Raptor  (chat lag)
  Haravikk  What about a thin bar that slides down from the menu bar, with the usual click to dismiss? Certainly for region-specific issues, like an imminent restart
  Jonathan  There might be other uses a user would want to send into a scrolling region at the top of the screen, too, feeds from who knows where
08:55  Ardy Lay  How about making it in the form of a bottom-bar button we can hide/show/sort and press to get details?
  Haravikk  For general purpose feeds surely the main notifications area is for precisely that kind of thing?
  The Raptor  K.I.S.S
  Ardy Lay  Maybe the button can change appearance when there are details to show?
08:56  Oz Linden  ok... we're running out of time, so let me look at the ongoing stuff....
  Ardy Lay  Hehe
  Wolfpup  Marianne this might be some thing that is more of an advanced setting and not for the basic user
  Techwolf Lupindo  The "⚠" icon would appear and flash slowly untill the user clicks on it and a popup shows the details. User click it close and the icon stay on full time, no blicking.
  Oz Linden  media filters.... on my plate to fix the test it broke (been busy w/ windlight)
    inventory exchange... no progress :-(
08:58    Display name caching.... I'm pretty sure someone's going to work on this shortly
  Haravikk  Sweet, I think it's just a timezone glitch
  Wolfpup  i think there has already been some owrk along those lines
08:59    i have seen commits for DN improvements
  Oz Linden  the various interface de-cluttering suggestions.... I've passed these on to our UX team, who are doing a lot of thinking about related stuff, so watch this space....
  Techwolf Lupindo  Too bad display name cacheing wasn't in place when it was rolled out day before x-mas, might have would avoid some issues.
  oobscure  I'm adding VWR-25321 and VWR-25363 to agenda for consideration in future meetings
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-25321

VWR-25321 Make user aware of the "CTRL + Up/Down Arrow" feature (which scrolls back message history)

    http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-25363

VWR-25363 Expose "Duplicate Object" feature in Viewer 2 (regression from 1.x)

  Oz Linden  actually, the names are cached... I don't know what the genesis of that problem is
09:00    ok oobscure
  Haravikk  I commented on VWR-4018 with regards to test object(s), the problem is there's no solid repro that I know of
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4018

VWR-4018 Texture animations ignore repeats per face (llTextureAnim())

  Haravikk  It just eventually happens for whatever reason
  Jonathan  Haravikk, did you read the comment just entered a few minutes ago?
09:01  Oz Linden  the VWR-25714 .... no update on that....
  JIRA-helper  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-25714

VWR-25714 Poor responsiveness of Profile and IM buttons in People search

  Oz Linden  I saw that comment from Toysoldier ... will check it out
    loves SL art galleries anyway