Eye on the Blog: Linden Lab Reports About Recent Developments

Earlier this week, Linden Lab announced on the official Second Life Blog updates on developments on some projects, in addition to announcements on some new ones, as well as new areas.

Project Bento was the first of the topics mentioned, but the Lab didn't go into specifics, saying only that "resident testers continue to improve this project," and that they were "very close" to making a release viewer (an early access viewer with a certain feature that hasn't quite had all the bugs worked out yet) with Bento as part of it. But there's no estimate yet as to when this will be made part of the official Second Life viewer. They did suggest those interested could join their "Bento User Group" which meets time to time. Inara Pey has a record of the meetings she has attended (here). Loki Elliot, a noted builder, says he has no plans to make anything with Bento until next year at least.

Next up for discussion was a feature useful for residents with lots of outfits: the Visual Outfits Browser, which has been made into a release viewer. Inara Pey described it as "this viewer allows you to use the Appearance floater to capture / upload / select images of your outfits and save them against the outfits in a new Outfit Gallery tab within the floater."

We realize Second Life Residents have dozens and dozens of outfits and looking at a list can be boring and uninspiring, not to mention difficult to remember what is what (imagine that you couldn't look at the clothes in your own closet at home, but instead could only see a list of their names!). With the new Visual Outfit Browser, you’ll be able to see your outfits via an all new gallery-style display, making selecting outfits a snap. You provide the images that are displayed for each outfit or try out VOB’s new snapshot utility. Playing dress-up has never been so easy and fun!

Third was Quicktime Replacement

Apple recently withdrew support for the Quicktime player for Windows, which has in any event been a steady source of security vulnerabilities over the years. This project replaces that plugin for the Windows Viewer with newer and more robust media support (the Mac Viewer will also get this new tech soon). It will play some media that Quicktime would not, but will not play some older Quicktime-only media. Content creators that incorporate media should be testing with this Viewer to see if the media they use is supported. In general, we recommend upgrading any shared media to mp3, mp4, or any HTML5 compatible format for best performance and stability.

As it turned out, Inara Pey earlier this summer wrote about both the Visual Outfit Browser and the VLC Plugin Viewer.

Also brought up were some new Learning and Social Island locations, which the Lab says were introduced in March. They called these, "the first to utilize Experience Tools as part of the new user experience." They also had a new location: Gaming Island.

A new Linden Lab region dedicated to educating Residents about skill games in Second Life.  On this region, anyone can learn how to play all available games of skill in a free-to-play setting. If you want to then go play the games for Linden dollars, the Portal Park makes it easy to find them.

"Skill gaming" is something of a controversial subject, some saying the difference between it and outright gambling are technical and legal loopholes. The place is  likely to be the subject of a number of discussions as word reaches the residents.

There was "Group Chat and Bans,"  the ability of group moderators to ban individual residents and keep them from returning. They also released the "Jellydoll Viewer," "which allows Residents to set limits on the amount of avatar complexity they render in their viewer." They stated they improved security for Linden transactions and email security. They stated they replaced the viewer's core HTTP infrastructure, "this has resulted in fewer problems with high volume operations like loading inventory, and has significantly reduced certain kinds of load on the simulator hosts." The Lab stated they've continued to improve the new Marketplace search they introduced last November.And they've continued to clean up bugs in the system, "we do try to introduce fewer than we fix! "

Do you the readers have anything to say about these improvements and developments? Please leave your comments below.

Eye on the Blog: Limited Release of Project Bento on Second Life

Earlier this week, Linden Lab announced that they were following up their testing of Project Bento, an upgrade in avatar design that would allow for much more detailed avatars with features such as moveable fingers, from being limited to the Aditi testing grid to the main Grid. But this will not be a full release. Residents with regular viewers may see avatars designed with Bento as odd-looking, glitched, or possibly crashing at the sight of them.

This release will be available on Agni, making it available to a much wider audience. However, this is still a limited release, until we’re confident enough that this could be a release candidate and ultimately be part of the release Viewer. Creators, recipients, and anyone wishing to view the new content must be running the latest Bento Project Viewer. 

If you encounter Bento avatars and are not using the Bento Project Viewer, you may see some strangely behaving avatar animations and meshes. If you're using a very old (i.e. no longer supported) viewer, encountering Bento content may even cause a crash; updating to the latest Bento Project Viewer will prevent this problem.



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In this Linden Lab video narrated by Torley Linden, some more examples of what Project Bento can do are shown. But as the scene in 1:27 shows, there are likely some residents whom will only be thinking of using Bento to extend their middle fingers to the virtual world.

The Linden blog entry can be read in full here.

May 4 Lab Chat Videos and Transcripts Now Available

For those who missed the Lab Chat some days ago, hosted by Saffia Widdershins and Jo Yardley, along with Ebbe, Oz, and Troy Linden, there are now videos and a transcript of the event.



(click here if the video fails to play).

The videos, the above, part two, and part three, were posted by Linden Lab. Inara Pey provided the transcript, in addition to a summary of the event: "Lab Chat #3 in 10-ish Minutes."

Sources: Lab Chat Blog, Modem World.

Lab Chat in LEA4 on May 4

By Gemma Cleanslate

I was happy to be able to attend the latest Chat Lab at LEA 4 on Friday. It is good to see these discussions continue. Saffia Widdershins and Frau Jo Yardley hosted and presented questions that had been submitted prior to the event and then switched to the audience questions. You will be able hear the entire conversation or read the transcripts soon. This is just a teaser.The Lindens participating were Troy Linden, Oz Linden and Ebbe Linden. They tried to keep the answers understandable and not too technical although some was over my head. There were over 100 avatars at the meeting, including some other Lindens attending also: Xiola, Keira, Pete.

Saffia opened with the announcement that there the LEA(Linden Endowment for the Arts) land grant applications are open to creators who wish to apply.

Then they went directly to questions. The first few were about Bento, and involved the new processes of movements that will be up coming. Some creators are using certain moves in very creative ways as you will see. The lab is trying to incorporate suggestions of the residents into its development and are actually thrilled to see the residents being so creative. It sounds all very interesting and I hope to try the beta just to take a peek.

There was discussion of the current viewer improvements that they are working on. Another question was about uploading of mesh and how to make it easier to upload more than the present 8 faces at a time.

They moved on to Sansar and one thing I found very interesting is the goal of being able to accommodate more than 100 avatars at bigger events  and possibly concurrent across some worlds and are hoping that by the end of this year there may be some movement in that area. Right now the most work is going into testing for the fundamental and basic user experience to be sure it is the best it can be. Thousands of creators have asked to be in beta for Sansar and at this point hopefully they will be notified and admitted in July or August . They are looking for committed users to use the beta , and as they need to be sure the project is ready enough not to inflict “too much pain on the first users.”

It is great to hear the Linden Lab group so accepting to suggestions from the questioners who have good ideas to be incorporated. That is how we solve things here says Frau Jo.

Another interesting question was regarding some of the avatars who are begging in groups for 100 L for rent for example and the best way to report them. Reporting by AR  is requested, please, with all the possible information for the Lab to be able to make a decision based on what they are told. It is better not to flood with multiple AR’s because it slows down the process. It is the nature of the complaint that is the issue and not the number.

The Lab is not ready to discuss money issues in Sansar but it looks like there will be some form of coin like lindens but that is still ahead for decision making .One sad thing I heard is that Mac users will have to wait until  the end of the year or more before all the doors will work. Some more linden experiences on the way but not yet ready for prime time.  There is much information, some not understood by me, but they try hard to not make it too technical in nature. It is good  to see the Lindens back in Second Life working and playing with the residents. It is greatly appreciated that they are listening to the residents. The meeting with a couple of breaks lasted for almost 1 hour and a half and it was most interesting. There is  uch more discussion that you will want to hear for yourself. Watch for the announcement of the transcript availability.  https://labchatsl.wordpress.com/  is the place to find it and the past ones are there for you to check out while you wait. 

Gemma Cleanslate

SL Video: "The Drax Files: World Makers [Episode 35: Project Bento]"

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Published on Feb 5, 2016 by Draxtor Despress, "'Our users create content all the time: this world is not bounded, it is not finite!' says Coyot Linden, describing the reason for the sustained success of Second Life amongst digital creatives: in this universe you have the freedom to be and do whatever you want!

"And precisely that open world concept is a daily challenge for Linden Lab engineers who have to operate on a "live patient" when trying to optimize performance or implement new features.

"Project Bento which added over 100 new joints/bones to the standard SL skeleton was such an endeavor, spanning months of intense collaboration between Lindens, residents and the ever busy SL content making contractors - the Moles.

"Now live on the SL test grid Aditi, Project Bento is bound to give the diverse culture in Second Life an even more expressive edge: complex facial animations for humans and fantasy creatures alike are now possible, hands have fully flexible fingers, multiple tails, wings, ears and even two heads are now thinkable: only one's imagination would be the barrier for identity exploration through colorful avatars.

"And all that new activity will be adding little load on Second Life servers, as animations would be running on local machines rather than SL servers.

"More information on Project Bento can be found at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bento_User_Group

"And the discussion is ongoing on the forums at https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/Project-Bento-Feedback-Thread/td-p/2987290

"Thanks to Cathy Foil, Siddean Munro and Matrice Laville for their work on Bento and thanks to the fabulous content creators who showed up to film with their brand new avatars: Aki Shichiroji, Mahadma, Medhue Simoni, Onyx LeShelle, Asra Orfan, Teager, Flea Bussy, Toady Nakamura.

"Thanks to Kennylex Luckless, Kris Spade, Jeet Kling, Inara Pey, Flufee, Shaman Linden and Simon Linden for being part of this film as well.

"Many moles showed up while filming = Bat, Ancient, Sylvan, Millie, Quartz and Frost.

"RL footage was shot by Siddean Munro and a global team of Lindens including Aura, Coyot, Oz, Pete, Troy, Vir and Xiola.

"Animations were made by Abramelin Wolfe and Silent Mole.

"Set design by Marianne McCann.

Mystic Bastion by Death Row Designs.
"
"Mole Lair set, Flying Pig, Angry Imp and Bento Supers by Pico Mole.

"Super special thanks to Torley for helping to shoot the in-world footage: it was just wonderful to collaborate on this piece!"

SL Video: "Project Bento Examples"

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On Monday, Draxtor Despress met up with some content creators in the Preview Grid, or Aditi Grid, to see what they had come up with using Project Bento, Linden Lab's latest project for improving Second Life avatars. Among those there was Inara Pey, whom later on her newsblog posted "a short piece I stitched together at the filming session." Note the flexible fingers on the Bento avatar, and the smooth walk of the rear legs of the centaur.

Source: Modem World.

Eye On The Blog: Project Bento Filming Party for the Drax Files Today at Noon SL Time in the Preview Grid

In the Linden Blog, it was recently mentioned that today Draxtor Despres will be doing a filming inworld for an upcoming episode for his "Drax Files." His subject: Project Bento. He wants to see what various content creators have been able to come up with so far with it, and has announced an "open casting call for anyone who has built something with Bento to show off their work."

It should be noted that the filming will not be done in the main Second Life grid, but the Aditi grid, also known as the Preview Grid.

If you’re a creator who’s testing out Project Bento, or one who’s eager to give it a try - now is the perfect time! We’re looking for creators to show off some of the possibilities of Project Bento for an upcoming episode of The Drax Files. There are detailed instructions on how to get started and how to get to the beta grid (aditi) on our wiki page. (TIP:Testing on Aditi does not cost you upload fees!)
 
On January 19th at NOON SLT, there will be an open casting call for anyone who has built something with Bento to come show off their work. Selected creators may be filmed and/or interviewed to be featured in an upcoming episode of the Drax Files. You will need to login to Aditi in order to access the location (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Bento%20Island/128/128/23). The location will not be open until NOON SLT on January 10th Information about Aditi and how to access it is located on our wiki.

Content creators "are encouraged to contact" Draxtor about their projects, "video, screenshots, descriptions - the more information the better." Those whom Draxtor choses to appear on his video will be contacted about where and when to meet up for a private filming on Wednesday January 20. Besides Dractor, Torley Linden will be there.

For more information, read the official Second Life blog post here.

(secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Bento%20Island/128/128/23)

Eye On the Blog: Project Bento

Linden Lab has been working on what is the biggest development in avatar design in many years. On Wednesday December 16, they announced on the official blog details about "Project Bento." With new bones added to the avatar skeleton design, people will not only be able to create more detailed avatars, with flexible fingers and other details, but also fancier ones for beyond human norms, such as wings and tails.

(Click here if the video fails to play)

We are introducing extensions to the standard Second Life Avatar Skeleton that give you dozens of new bones to support both rigging and animation, and accompanying new attachment points! This extended skeleton, which is fully backward compatible with existing avatars, rigging and animation, gives creators the power to build more sophisticated avatars than ever before. 

The extensions for the skeleton include:

• 11 extra limb bones for wings, additional arms, or extra legs.
• 6 tail bones
• 30 bones in the hands (all 10 fingers!)
• 30 bones for facial expressions
• 2 other new bones in the head for animating ears or antennae
• 13 new attachment points associated with the new bones

The Lab went on to say they had developed the project "in collaboration with many expert Resident content creators and with the developers of the most popular tools for creating avatars and animations, so there will quickly be versions of those tools you can use to help take advantage of these changes."

More information on Project Bento can be read in the Knowledge Base. Those interested in testing Bento and giving feedback have been asked to check out the "Project Bento Testing" on the Second Life Wiki page.

The Lab has emphasized that they are taking care to make sure the updates are backwards-computable with existing avatar designs. For now, the changes can only be seen on the Aditi Beta Test Grid, "Once we have finalized the skeleton extensions, we will enable uploads using them to the main Second Life grid and the real fun can begin!"

For the complete blog entry: Click Here. One can also read the thread created in the official forums, and the one created in the SL Universe forums. The comments in the SL Universe thread were overwhelmingly positive, though there were a lot of jokes about the groin bone. In the official forums thread, comments were more mixed, some residents wondering about what the catch was.