Simulator User Group/Transcripts/2013.01.22

Simulator_User_Group
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== List of Speakers ==
Andrew Linden 	Baker Linden 	DrFran Babcock
Inara Pey 	Jonathan Yap 	Kaleb Silvercloud
Kallista Destiny	Kelly Linden 	Kennylex Luckless
Lexbot Sinister 	Liisa Runo 	Melvin Starbrook
Motor Loon 	Nalates Urriah	Qie Niangao
Rex Cronon 	Simon Linden 	Whirly Fizzle
== Transcript ==
[12:02] Simon Linden: We didn't have any version on the RC channels suitable for promotion, so there was none this mornign
[12:02] Simon Linden: Tomorrow the RC channels will get updated ... threaded region crossing is coming back, along with interest list work
[12:03] Rex Cronon: hello everybody
[12:03] Andrew Linden: There was a crash mode in last week's interestlist RC
[12:03] Motor Loon: you guys planned this so you wouldn't have to get up early this morning eh?
[12:03] Andrew Linden: but now fixed
[12:03] Simon Linden: The one maintenance RC that's there now has a bug that Kelly just fixed, but I'm not sure its going to be in RC ... probably not since we have to turn around and get it through QA very quickly
[12:04] Simon Linden: That's it for release news
[12:04] Jonathan Yap: Will the maint. RC on Magnum be eliminated then tomorrow?
[12:05] Simon Linden: I _believe_ it will come back next week, Jonathan
[12:05] Jonathan Yap: ok, I will not let the storm issue depending on it go to qa then
[12:06] Simon Linden: oh, what is that?
[12:06] Jonathan Yap: err, svc-7996 I think
[12:06] Jonathan Yap: the fix for permissions of newly created scripts
[12:07] Jonathan Yap: storm-68 depends upon it
[12:07] JIRA-helper: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-68
[#STORM-68] As a Builder, I want that ability to set default permissions on creation of objects, clothing, scripts, notecards, etc. - Second Life Bug Tracker
[12:07] Simon Linden: ah, right ... they could probabaly test against a build on Aditi but it would need that out on the grid first. It's certainly less confusion to wait for it to spread around
[12:07] Rex Cronon: just don't make the default pers full perms(edit+copy+mod)
[12:07] Jonathan Yap: yes, better to wait
[12:08] Rex Cronon: default perms*
[12:08] Whirly Fizzle: Will the Magnum regions nor showing in search be fixed on Wednesdays roll?
[12:08] Whirly Fizzle: *not
[12:08] Kelly Linden: whirly: yes
[12:08] Jonathan Yap: Rex, you will have a lot of control, see https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/attachment/66527/DefaultPerms.png
[12:08] Whirly Fizzle: Cool :)
[12:09] Rex Cronon: sadly the link to that image doesn't seem to be accesible to everybody:(
[12:10] Jonathan Yap: Did you log in to jira first?
[12:10] Rex Cronon: nope
[12:10] Whirly Fizzle: http://i.imgur.com/gcs2Wc5.png
[12:10] Lexbot Sinister: i can see the image without logging in, although i'm already logged onto the dashboard.
[12:11] Jonathan Yap: If anyone thinks more fields should be added to that floater now is the time to say so
[12:11] Lexbot Sinister: Uploads need to be split between meshes and textures
[12:11] Simon Linden: Will those default to teh current settings?
[12:12] Jonathan Yap: Simon, I think the default is notrans is checked, that's all
[12:12] Jonathan Yap: sorry, did not mean to steal away the server meeting
[12:13] Simon Linden: No worries, we need to talk about something :)
[12:13] Kaleb Silvercloud: leave it to a tuba to toot his own horn. :P
[12:13] Motor Loon: lol
[12:13] Jonathan Yap: Lexbot, I did that coding a while ago, I'm not sure it was possible to determine if a mesh or texture was being uploaded at that point
[12:14] Simon Linden: I'm just checking that we don't add anything where someone does what they used to do, but accidentally now makes stuff that's at wrong perms
[12:14] Rex Cronon: i think u should add texture and sound fields:)
[12:14] Jonathan Yap: Good point Simon.
[12:14] Lexbot Sinister: Normally uploaded textures are pointless to share as no trans etc. While meshes are handled differently...
[12:14] Whirly Fizzle: Lat build with that eature ion I tested defaulted to mod/copy/no trans for all options
[12:14] Whirly Fizzle: *last
[12:14] Whirly Fizzle: OMG can't type
[12:15] Jonathan Yap: I think I hooked into the upload code at a much lower level, well past where what type of item was being uploaded is determined
[12:15] Jonathan Yap: What is the desired default?
[12:15] Qie Niangao: hmm... if we can tell what kind of asset is being uploaded, then animations might be different, too.
[12:15] Lexbot Sinister: Ah true.
[12:17] Rex Cronon: by default i wouldn't want any of the boxes to be checked:)
[12:17] Jonathan Yap: one of c/m/t has to be checked
[12:18] Rex Cronon: no it doesn't
[12:18] Lexbot Sinister: definitly no trans. At least that minimises any damages if you mess up
[12:18] Rex Cronon: any permissions i want to give i will give myself
[12:18] Qie Niangao: I think one of c/t must be checked. modify is independent.
[12:19] Jonathan Yap: But what does the server do when a new item is created with nothing specified?
[12:19] Whirly Fizzle: What Qie said is how it is at the moment & I think always has been?
[12:19] Rex Cronon: u could add a drop-box that has: 1] allow all 2]allow none 3]custom
[12:20] Rex Cronon: if u select allow all will check all boxes, if u select allow none will unceck all
[12:20] Andrew Linden: I think the server will enforce yes-trans if the object is no-mod + no-copy.
[12:20] Rex Cronon: unchec*
[12:20] Rex Cronon: uncheck*
[12:21] Simon Linden: I'm not sure, Jonathan .... the original bug with this server side fix came along because the viewer was sending up some info on requested perms for new scripts, but totally ignoring them
[12:21] Simon Linden: So now the server respects what's send up in that message ... depending on the messaging and such with other assets, it could be doing anything
[12:21] Jonathan Yap: yes simon, that server fix was for new scripts, but there are all those other types as well, and they are all done in different code paths (e.g. rezz a cube, upload, etc)
[12:22] Rex Cronon: btw why has the server to tell people that they must allow resell/giveaway?
[12:23] Rex Cronon: seems illogical
[12:23] Jonathan Yap: Iwill run a test with the LL viewer to see what the defaults are for all those types and make sure the settings in that new floater default to those values
[12:23] Andrew Linden: As I recall the enforcement of allowing trans was to allow first-buyer's to resell
[12:23] Andrew Linden: which is allowable for real-world goods in the US, I believe.
[12:23] Andrew Linden: I'm not a lawyer, and I wan't very involved in that early design.
[12:24] Andrew Linden: But that is what I remember.
[12:24] Lexbot Sinister: Hum, a script doesn't really need any of those..
[12:24] Melvin's Windup key TO: Melvin Starbrook's windup key has run out.
[12:25] Andrew Linden: So, if a virtual object is "unique" (can't be copied) then it can be resold.
[12:25] Jonathan Yap: I will look into adding settings for the different upload types (I remember this was not an option for the wearables)
[12:25] Rex Cronon: well if u want to make an game item that can't be copied, edited not transferrable it is bad:(
[12:25] Andrew Linden: indeed
[12:26] Whirly Fizzle: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3709 (We need no-copy AND no-transfer objects)
[12:26] Rex Cronon: imagine making a badge of honour and prople being allowed to trade it...
[12:26] Kaleb Silvercloud: Yeah..I got some Phil Linden wood blocks..numbered and with a certificate of authenticity......No copy/trans. :)
[12:26] Lexbot Sinister: An item is plenty fine if it's mod, it's scripts don't necessarily need to be. I mean, i wouldn't want to buy it (no copy) but some creators are like that.
[12:27] Rex Cronon: btw what is wrong with havok?
[12:28] Rex Cronon: now my bullets hammer themselves in the ground and stay that way:(
[12:28] Kaleb Silvercloud: people are scared of mod items because there's drop in scripts that'll clone the object they're dropped into
[12:28] Simon Linden: People definitley don't like to give away their coding ... its oneof the few things in SL that can't be easily stolen from the viewre
[12:28] Melvin Starbrook: ah was there that market place thingy for
[12:28] Simon Linden: Rex - have you tried that on different regions?
[12:29] Andrew Linden: Rex, when did your bullets break? And what region are you seeing it in?
[12:29] Rex Cronon: sandbox weapons testing
[12:29] Rex Cronon: i fired them at ground and things got interesting
[12:29] Jonathan Yap: can you do that here?
[12:30] Rex Cronon: is like they r in a vertex that sucks them upward and nails them in the ground
[12:30] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is half over
[12:30] Rex Cronon: they r not scripted
[12:30] Rex Cronon: and a "little" big:)
[12:30] Andrew Linden: I don't know of anything that changed in the physics engine lately (maybe Simon or Kelly do) but maybe the bullets broke after the pathfinding project?
[12:31] Andrew Linden: In the pathfinding project the terrain was turned into a "mesh" shape instead of a "heightfield"
[12:31] Rex Cronon: yesterday i observed this fo the first time
[12:31] Simon Linden: I don't think there have been changes to the engine recently
[12:31] Jonathan Yap: shoot into the ground behind you
[12:31] Rex Cronon: so can i give a demo?
[12:32] Andrew Linden: the mesh shape can be optimized better than a heightfield, but does make it easier for fast objects to "tunnel through" its surface
[12:32] Andrew Linden: sure
[12:32] Melvin Starbrook: Eep!
[12:32] Rex Cronon: they stick into the ground
[12:32] Rex Cronon: u see that one
[12:32] Rex Cronon: is like a pin
[12:33] Rex Cronon: u can collide with it. won't move
[12:33] Andrew Linden: Yeah, I'm gussing those bullets broke right after the pathfinding project
[12:33] Simon Linden: what are you expecting it to do?
[12:33] Motor Loon: VolumeDetect related mabye
[12:33] Rex Cronon: look at them
[12:33] Andrew Linden: it looks like the pins are "snagging" in a partial penetrated state into the terrain mesh.
[12:33] Motor Loon: that "fix" broke alot of stuff
[12:33] Rex Cronon: they stick into the ground
[12:34] Jonathan Yap: Andrew, would the lack of a heightfield explain why a teleport first sends me underground?
[12:34] Rex Cronon: if u walk into them they don't move
[12:34] Rex Cronon: if u shoot them they won't move
[12:34] Liisa Runo: he expects them to work like any sold phys object, collide, bounce, slice and roll normally on the ground, not penentrate and stick to it
[12:34] Liisa Runo: solid*
[12:34] Andrew Linden: If I were to channel the spirit of Falcon Linden I would say "Well, don't make balistic bullets. You should be using ray tracing."
[12:35] Rex Cronon: they r like pins in a pincushion
[12:35] Andrew Linden: However I actually like the idea of ballistic objects as bullets, so I'm sympathetic.
[12:35] Simon Linden: the odd thing is that they are behaving like you'd expect a big spike to stick into the ground ... and I realize that's not normal
[12:35] Rex Cronon: right is not normal. if i were to shoot them perpendicularly to the ground maybe
[12:35] Qie Niangao: the spikes are 3 prims long... the top-most seems to collide with the terrain mesh, usually.
[12:35] Liisa Runo: if bullets act like that, it is possible for other stuff to fail same way, like a vehicle for example
[12:36] Rex Cronon: but i shoot them at angle and they themselves go straight up
[12:36] Andrew Linden: Yes Liisa, it is easier for vehicles to snag on the terrain now.
[12:36] Rex Cronon: and they r oscillating like crazy until they get straight
[12:36] Lexbot Sinister: Vehicles being not only vehicles, but also couples walks, rideable animals etc
[12:37] Lexbot Sinister: which you would expect to be used on terrain.
[12:37] Rex Cronon: now i see them rotating:)
[12:38] Motor Loon: not to mention supposedly "grandfathered" vehicles using volumedetect to make childprims phantom, now collide with terrain on those parts while being phantom for anything else.
[12:38] Rex Cronon: imaginehow laser beam look like sticking out of theground:)
[12:39] Andrew Linden: Yeah, I don't know of an easy fix.
[12:39] Rex Cronon: is bizzare:)
[12:39] Jonathan Yap: Can someone consult with Falcon?
[12:39] Andrew Linden: The heightfield was a performance problem, especially for ray-tracing and pathfinding
[12:39] DrFran Babcock: hello, Baker
[12:40] Baker Linden: Hello
[12:40] Rex Cronon: greeting
[12:40] Inara Pey: Hey, Baker
[12:40] Baker Linden: Howdy!
[12:40] Lexbot Sinister: I guess when there's no fix, then maybe then make it official, so the creators don't get beaten by angry consumer mob.
[12:40] Andrew Linden: but I wonder if it would be possible to try to override the penetration resolution stuff for ground penetrations
[12:41] Lexbot Sinister: Some older things will become obsolete... but it's good to know whats going to be obsolete and why.
[12:41] Rex Cronon: look baker stick pins:)
[12:41] Rex Cronon: self-sticking bullets actually:)
[12:42] Rex Cronon: i should market them as "smart" bullets:)
[12:42] Andrew Linden: Hrm... I just had an idea. I'll try to bounce it off of Falcon...
[12:43] Andrew Linden: we could construct a heighfield for the terrain (in parallel to the mesh) but most objects would not collide with it by default (and especially not ray-traces)
[12:43] Baker Linden: I wanted to pop in and mention that the new object rez code I've been working on is going to QA for testing in the next few weeks. We're looking at some sim stats, and it seems like the threading is doing a good job of keeping the simulator running at full framerate. That's good because that means more things can get processed every frame. Once the code is live somewhere, I'll announce the location here and in Thursday's Beta User Group, so y'all can start testing it to find any additional bugs we didn't catch in QA.
[12:43] Andrew Linden: but we could detect when an object is penetrating the mesh, and the set that object to collide with the heightfield
[12:43] Rex Cronon: is like they find holse inside the ground mesh and stick in the?
[12:43] Andrew Linden: and we could do penetration resolution using the heightfield
[12:43] Rex Cronon: find holes*
[12:44] Andrew Linden: and then disable collisions again when the object is resolved
[12:44] Andrew Linden: er.... disable collisions with between that object and the heightfield
[12:46] Andrew Linden: Well, I wrote the idea down. I'll try to ask Falcon to see what he thinks.
[12:46] Motor Loon: sorta a oldschool and newschool sidebyside solution lol
[12:46] Simon Linden: that seems convoluted, but maybe it could sort out the resolving and get stuff out of the ground
[12:46] Jonathan Yap: Andrew, do you remember the discussion of teleports arriving underground?
[12:47] Jonathan Yap: I wonder if this is related to that issue
[12:47] Andrew Linden: Well, Havok allows us to do pairwise collision handling (enable/disable) between objects, so it might not "cost" that much in CPU time.
[12:47] Rex Cronon: so if a long plane hits the ground will it stick just like those bullets?
[12:48] Andrew Linden: No Rex, theoretically we could do proper penetration resolution, so the plane could be "pushed" out in the right direction.
[12:48] Andrew Linden: The mesh terrain is just a mesh... it collides on the underside faces
[12:48] Andrew Linden: whereas a heightfield has a notion of "outside" and "inside".
[12:48] Kallista Destiny: Why is that?
[12:48] Kallista Destiny: underside faces I mean
[12:49] Andrew Linden: A "mesh" is really just a pile of triangles in the Havok engine
[12:49] Kallista Destiny: nods
[12:50] Andrew Linden: the physics engine performs triangle-vs-othershape algorithms once it knows which shapes are hitting which triangles
[12:50] Motor Loon: hence the saying "like trying to find a triangle in a second life sim"...
[12:50] Andrew Linden: the othershape could be a sphere, box, other triangle, cylinder, etc
[12:50] Andrew Linden: at the triangle level it doesn't know "inside" vs "outside"
[12:50] Andrew Linden: Yes Jonathan, this could be related to teleporting undergound
[12:51] Lexbot Sinister: oh... just crossing through or not...
[12:51] Andrew Linden: especially if the avatar is bumping on the under surface and can't get through
[12:51] Andrew Linden: however we have some special code for trying to keep avatars above the terrain surface
[12:51] Andrew Linden: but since it is "special case" code it isn't very efficient
[12:51] Jonathan Yap: I arrive in hippotropolis underground but am popped up 1-2 seconds later
[12:51] Andrew Linden: and we wouldn't want to turn it on for all bullets... that would probably open up a new lag mode
[12:52] Whirly Fizzle: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-1280 (Teleporting using the World Map puts you underground upon arrival )
[12:52] Rex Cronon: try rezzing a prim while underground and see what happens:)
[12:52] Lexbot Sinister: wouldn't the special code just push a penetrating object upwards the Z axis until no penetration is detected?
[12:52] Kennylex Luckless: Can anyone give Lindens a course in how to find hair in the inventory?
[12:52] Andrew Linden: sure Lexbot, but it is the constant "checking to see if it is underground" that can be expensive
[12:53] Motor Loon: that'd probably mess up collisions with terrain even more than today
[12:53] Andrew Linden: and avatar's are a guaranteed simple shape as far as the physics engine is concerned -- not so for all objects
[12:53] Andrew Linden: so the algorithm that pushes the avatar out is simple
[12:54] Simon Linden: That TP arrival one seems like it should be easy to fix .. but I'm surprised there isn't code there already for it. Maybe I'm thinking of pre-mesh terrain functionality
[12:54] Andrew Linden: whereas the shortest resolution for an arbitrary concave object is not so simple
[12:54] Motor Loon: How about just bringing back the old heightmap and use it like we have for 10 years now, and then keep the mesh terrain hidden and ONLY used for those few things that couldn't work with the heightmap ?
[12:55] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is almost over
[12:55] Andrew Linden: Motor, there are performance gains in general when using a mesh
[12:56] Motor Loon: mabye but those certainly came with alot of hassels
[12:56] Lexbot Sinister: Oh.. couldn't the terrain mesh be modified now then so you could form caves etc?
[12:56] Andrew Linden: so I think the preference would be to use the mesh when possible and then invoke the heightfield only when necessary (if my idea is even feasible)
[12:56] Andrew Linden: Lexbot, actually yes: caves would be possible in theory for collision purposes
[12:57] Andrew Linden: however... our terrain streaming protocol expects a heitfield topology
[12:57] Lexbot Sinister: That would actually be an extremely nice shiny side-effect of it all.
[12:57] Rex Cronon: yes. caves r welcomed:)
[12:57] Qie Niangao: But you have to terraform in Blender. :p
[12:58] Rex Cronon: nope. we can use bullets to dig caves;)
[12:58] Kallista Destiny: shades of 2003?
[12:58] Simon Linden: There's some code inside SL that's used kind of a lot ... it gets the ground height at a given position. That would get interesting with caves, as Z becomes a factor
[12:59] Rex Cronon: i mean dynamite:)
[12:59] Lexbot Sinister: Well, since there is no real tool to modify mesh inworld, having to make the terrain in blender isn't so bad. As long as it performs as terrain and doesn't cost LI
[12:59] Andrew Linden: Yeah, wouldn't it be cool to be able to dig into the terrain sorta like minecraft?
[12:59] Motor Loon: Not really any reason why you currently can't just build a whole terrains as a Mesh object and rez out with caves etc.
[13:00] Andrew Linden: But minecraft avoided the rendering challenges by just rendering lots and lots of blocks.
[13:00] Meeter: Thank you for coming to the Server User Group
[13:00] Lexbot Sinister: MotorLoon- but then you have two terrain surfaces, and one being redundant. Also terrain is terrain, not object paid with LI
[13:00] Rex Cronon: u don't need to make a tool to edit terrain mesh. just give us a lsl function that can move around ground mesh vertices:)
[13:00] Andrew Linden: Right Motor, and we can stream mesh assets to the viewer. Maybe the terrain should just be one big mesh object.
[13:00] Motor Loon: True Lexbot
[13:01] Andrew Linden: well, I've got another meeting that starts now
[13:01] Andrew Linden: I'm going to have to run.
[13:01] Jonathan Yap: Thank you everybody
[13:01] Rex Cronon: tc andrew
[13:01] Nalates Urriah: thx Lindens
[13:01] Rex Cronon: tc everybody that is leaving
[13:01] Inara Pey: Thanks, Andrew, Simon, Baker
[13:01] Qie Niangao: Thanks Andrew, Simon, Baker, Kelly... everybody have fun!
[13:01] Kallista Destiny: Thank you lindens
[13:01] Lexbot Sinister: Thanks for the meeting!
[13:01] Simon Linden: Thanks everyone for coming today
[13:01] Rex Cronon: tc simon
Simulator_User_Group
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