Samurai Edo is now testing Havok4

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/30/samurai-edo-is-now-testing-havok4/

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Just received this notice from the Samurai Island Warriors Group:

Group Notice From: Esprite Xavier

Hey Everyone!

Samurai Edo has now entered the Early Adopter Program for Havok 4, so if you feel like testing stop by the sim! Be sure to report any weirdness you experience with the new physics engine.  I’m sure it will be useful to not only LL but other warriors as well in the development of Havok 4.

The directions for filing bug reports for Havok 4 can also be found on the website as well as the original LL blog post.

For quick reference, here’s the part of the Second Life Blog post dealing with how to report Havok4-related problems:

How Do I Report A Problem?

To submit a Havok4 bug:

1) Log in to the https://jira.secondlife.com/ page with your Second Life avatar name and password.
2) Click “Create New Issue”
3) Set PROJECT to “2 Second Life Service - SVC” and ISSUE TYPE to “Bug”
4) On the next page, type step-by-step instructions for how to create the problem, and if specific products are involved include the product vendor name and specific product name and version.
5) VERY IMPORTANT: Please set COMPONENTS = “Physics” and AFFECTS VERSIONS = “Havok4 Beta”. If you do not choose these settings, the Havok4 team may not see your bug report for a while!

For a demo of the jira public issue tracker, see Torley’s great video “how to report a bug“. Again, please be sure to set COMPONENTS = “Physics” and AFFECTS VERSIONS = “Havok4 Beta”!

Thanks in advance for helping to test the next generation Second Life simulator. We really appreciate your help in making Second Life better.

Second Life Mono VM Not Yet Useable

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/29/second-life-mono-vm-not-yet-useable/

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As excited as I was at the announcement that I could now test LSL Running on Mono on the Beta Grid, I immediately downloaded the new client and signed in to see how the C:SI scripts would run under this fancy schmancy speedy new backend.

And…  They don’t.  Well, most of them do, though not all that well, but as you will see from the following snapshots, several of them flat-out refuse to even compile ( I didn’t bother to post the duplicates, these two messages were oft-repeated ):

I left those that didn’t compile as standard LSL scripts (because I didn’t have any choice), and tried using the swords.  Most things worked fairly well, but among the most obvious symptoms was the fact that any attempt to dash or double-jump would delay by anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds.  In other words, when I’d press W twice in quick succession, I had to wait for a very long time before the dash would kick in.

This puts a severe crimp in my plans to get a few people (thanks for volunteering, Colin!) to test this out, since I already know for certain that several scripts won’t even compile, and I’d have to guess at any symptoms I saw as to whether it was Mono at fault or the fact that the sword contains both Mono and LSL scripts.

While I’m on the topic of the Beta Grid, I have another snapshot that I’d like to share.   It’s not specific to the Beta viewer, the problem I’m about to complain about is common to *all* viewer versions.  You can click the image to see the full version:

Now, just in case the problem’s not immediately obvious, lemme just point out that the Search dialog is fecking huge, is not resizable, and you cannot click the teleport button under the location you finally found after 20 minutes of Search not working AT ALL.

There are several other places in the user interface where you get a dialog too large to be useful when you are running in 800×600, which I am forced to do because of the atrocious performance of the viewer in full screen.

It’s pretty clear that either: 1) Linden Lab’s user interface people never actual use what they build in any other configuration, or 2) They just don’t care whether the interface is useful to people forced to run in 800×600.  Either way, I’m sorely disappointed.

Mono Beta Launch - For Realz this time

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/29/mono-beta-launch-for-realz-this-time/

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According to this post on the Official Second Life Blog:

Mono Beta Launch

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 2:11 PM PST by: babbagelinden

We’re very pleased to announce the beta testing of Mono in Second Life. Mono is a technology which will increase the speed of scripts running in Second Life. The goal is that everyone will experience reduced lag and improved stability and that it will be possible to script complex behaviours that were not previously feasible in Second Life.

If you want to try this out, you need the latest and greatest Beta viewer (available here) as previous versions will not work.

The Mono-enabled regions are:

• Sandbox Cordova MONO
• Sandbox Goguen MONO
• Sandbox Newcomb MONO
• Sandbox Wanderton MONO

I’m going to try to figure out how to bribe talk some people into testing mono-enabled C:SI weapons on the beta grid, so that we can hopefully flush out any issues and report them before Linden Lab decides to go live.

[UPDATE]  Check out this interesting tidbit from the Mono Wiki page:

Will the available memory for scripts change? (Currently 16k in LSL2 VM) 

For the same LSL script the Mono bytecode and LSL2 bytecode will be of different size. In order to be compatible with all known scripts, we have expanded the size ceiling for Mono to be 64k. This is ok to do for Mono because unlike LSL2, Mono bytecode assets are dynamically sized. With LSL2 all scripts occupy 16k, with Mono scripts only occupy what they need.

Off topic: XKCD Rocks

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/27/off-topic-xkcd-rocks/

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If you haven’t heard of the online comic XKCD (and you love geek humor), then you really should check it out!

If you need a little idea of why I think it’s so good before you go clicking blind links, lemme just post a couple of examples that I thought were funny (and that would fit in my blog’s format):

And my absolute favorite one of all (as well as my son’s):

Clan Information

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/27/clan-information/

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In an ongoing attempt to make the Combat: Samurai Island system more comprehensive, compelling, and open we have started working on a few projects that require, among other things, the ability to programmatically discover who is in each official C:SI clan.

Unfortunately, there is no consistency on how the various clan groups are set up in Second Life, with the result that as far as I can tell, a few clans are so small that they are in danger of being disbanded :

1. Crescent Moon - 34 members
2. Shadow Samurai - 20 members
3. Ako Roshi - 35 members
4. Kyousei Clan and Dojo - 5 members
5. Vanguard Samurai - 63 members
6. Order of the Fox - 3 members
7. Yakuza Samurai School - 4 members
8. Tendai-shu - 72 members
9. Ancients of Eternity - 4 members
10. Samurai Giri - 25 members
11. The Oda Clan - 15 members
12. Samurai of Daoism - 453 members

Now, I know that some of these numbers are incorrect, most likely because the people who set up the SL Groups have the "Members are visible" checkbox unchecked:

For now we’ll use what information we have, but in the future it’s possible that there will be problems caused by not being able to know who’s in which clans, so I’d like to personally ask clan leaders to make clan members visible.

Catching MONO from Linden Lab

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/27/catching-mono-from-linden-lab/

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Uh, yeah…  I’m just paraphrasing the following paragraph from a post on the VTeam blog entitled Q&A Series continues with Catching MONO… :

Don’t miss Q&A: Catching MONO tomorrow 1/28/08 & again 2/5/08

Linden Lab Studio Icehouse is now testing a simulator upgrade which will dramatically speed the running of scripts. The Linden Scripting Language (LSL) will not change in any way, so all of your existing scripted objects and attachments will continue to function as before, only faster. The key to this improvement is an open-sourced virtual machine called Mono.

Babbage & Scouse Linden - Monday 1/28 at 7am PST
Periapse Linden - Tuesday 2/5 at 3pm PST

Visit the VTeam Blog for full details & SLurl

Ugh, 7:00AM

Well, I suppose I’ll make a good effort to make it, as I *definitely* have some questions I’d like answered regarding LSL scripts running on Mono.

[EDIT] Here’s the SLurl: Volunteer Island SW

Windlight V1.18.6 : WTF were they thinking?

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/26/windlight-v1186-wtf-were-they-thinking/

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I mentioned previously that the latest version of Windlight was an abomination, but only now is the true measure of FAIL being discovered.

Apparently, the issue with C:SI swords and other attachments being partially visible (or as Colin puts it: "turned my Wave into airport landing lights) when they are not supposed to be is intentional.

Lemme just pause while that last sentence sinks in….

…

…

Yes, Seriously.  Torley Linden specifically commented on this fact way back on 2007-12-13, but I only discovered it today on the Torley Linden/Project Updates page of the Second Life Wiki.  Specifically, here’s what that page has to say regarding the issue:

[2007-12-13] [WINDLIGHT] Alpha textures becoming opaque at a distance

Yes, it’s intentional that alpha (32-bit, see-through) textures become opaque (solid) at a distance — this was done as a speed booster, since layered alpha textures decrease performance.

At the same time, I know how ugly it looks in some situations, and how it impairs other things — for example, if want to take a picture of an apartment building and the contents of its floors, but when I zoom out, the glass windows (alpha textures) go opaque, blocking my view.

I wonder if it’d be a good idea to map this to Objects Mesh Detail… or provide an option in Debug Settings.

Next steps: collate Issue Tracker stuff related to this like VWR-3101, forward to our Developers on Team WindLight for a better solution…

There are apparently no less than 20 issues in Jira related to this, and it seems from everything I’ve seen so far (especially given the amount of time that this issue has apparently already existed), that there is no intention of fixing it.  The best indication that I’ve seen thus far that LL has any intention of doing anything at all is a quote from Torley on the 15th :

Look for a fix for this soon — the transition should be more reliable.

In other words, "we intend to keep alpha textures opaque, but we’ll try to make it so that it only happens at 5 meters instead of 0.5", or something very likely to that effect.

Thinking forward, since Windlight is effectively a beta test version that runs on the main grid, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that they intend to migrate this fucked up idea to all versions of the viewer in the future.

I’m so flabbergasted I can’t think of anything else to say.  I’m just… 

Seriously, Linden Lab : WTF were you thinking?  Do you *ever* actually USE Second Life?

 

 

P.S.: I know that at least Torley uses Second Life, and I love Torley, but Torley is an always-optimistic, "make the best of things" person who doesn’t appear to be the one making these asinine decisions, so please don’t think I’m picking on Torley in this post.

Havok 4 has a *long* way to go

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/26/havok-4-has-a-long-way-to-go/

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Well, after a couple of days of dealing with a Havok 4 Early Adopter sim, I’m fairly confidently able to say that the Havok4 program is absolutely not ready for "prime time".

It’s bad enough that the physics are sufficiently different as to cause problems for C:SI combat, but even non-physical things are borked.  For instance, not once in the last two days has an object I attempted to create been created where I indicated, most often being misplaced by several meters.  That might sound like a minor issue, but when you *commonly* spend multiple dozens of hours making sure that prims are as perfectly aligned as SL will allow, you know that being off by several meters is much too frustrating to deal with after a bit.  To top that off, not once has an object I’ve attempted to rez by hand from inventory succeeded the first time. 

There have also been hundreds of what appear to be Asset Server-related issues, but when I go to another sim (even a super-laggy one containing a mall) those issues simply don’t occur.  For instance, I cannot conveniently edit scripts in my skybox because at least 50% of the time they simply fail to load - and even after I do get them to load, half the time they fail to save as well - which would normally indicated heavy Asset Server loads yet when I go to ANY OTHER sim it works as expected. 

I’m still excited that Linden Lab is working on a new physics engine, and they’ve done some very impressive work so far, but as a content creator who spends 90% of his SL time building and scripting, both of which are moderately to severely borked in my Havok4 home sim, it’s far too painful an environment to work in.  It looks like I will be temporarily moving my workspace for the forseeable future

Mono is deployed on Beta Grid

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/25/mono-is-deployed-on-beta-grid/

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I’m probably jumping the gun a little bit, but I just discovered a post on SLOG (Mono deployed on the Beta Grid) by Gwyneth Llewelyn that says the anxiously awaited day is here:

At the Linden Lab Q&A today, following Joe ‘Linden’ Miller’s podcast, Joe just announced that Mono had been deployed on the Beta Grid. It’s now running on some of the sims there.

Congratulations to Babbage Linden and his team for rolling out Mono on the Beta Grid.

An official announcement will be coming shortly… in the mean time, download the SL Beta Viewer, hit the Beta Grid, and break the scripts there

/me runs off to download the beta viewer….

Colin Sez : "I’m 1 years old"

The post is cross-posted from http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/2008/01/25/colin-sez-im-1-years-old/

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hehe…  I am imagining an infant, you know how they talk when they tell you how old they are…  Okay, well, it’s funny to me.  Guess you had to be there.

In any case, it’s Colin’s 1-year rezday in Second Life:

Well, today is my first Rezday. I was thinking of inviting people to my house for a party or something, but my computer hasn’t been fully functional this past week so I wasn’t on SL to send out notices and things. I may still log in tonight and see if I can get something impromptu going.

HAPPY REZDAY COLIN!!!