Deploys for the week of 2022-05-09

[Maestro Linden]

Apologies for the late posting.  The rolls are already complete at this point.

Second Life Server

This Tuesday, we rolled version 2022-05-05.571557 to all Second Life Server and Events channels.  The only difference between this version and 2022-04-29.571411 is that the new llGetVisualParams() function now supports a restricted set of parameters.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/simulator/2022-05-05.571557.html

Deployed on 2022-05-10

Second Life RC

On Wednesday, the same version was also deployed to all Second Life RC channels.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/simulator/2022-05-05.571557.html

Deployed on 2022-05-11

[Aishagain]

Thankyou Maestro.  By the way I can let let you have a kilo of mushrooms if you're interested.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Aishagain

[Sayrah Parx]

I still don't know what the point is of llGetVisualParams.  We've been able to check if someone's shape is male or female for years, with llGetObjectDetails.  Everything else is just the shape values from 0 to 100, and not actual measurements.  As far as I know, there is no way for that to be useful in any way other than being able to copy a shape.  But at least someone realized it was a bad idea to be able to get all of someone's shape and physics values.  People selling no-mod shapes must have been really upset, especially ones that have demos.  I'm still shocked that no one responsible for llGetVisualParams really thought it through, when being able to copy a shape seems to be the absolute only use for it.  If it's actually possible to put the shape values into some kind of formula to determine height, that would be great to know.  But that would be the only real use for llGetVisualParams if that's possible, and no formula has been published anywhere.  Without such a formula, the values are only relative to other values.  It would be great to know if anyone else has actually discovered a real reason for it being implemented.

[Aishagain]

8 minutes ago, Sayrah Parx said:

I'm still shocked that no one responsible for llGetVisualParams really thought it through, when being able to copy a shape seems to be the absolute only use for it. 

This

[Qie Niangao]

To know where this came from, probably start with this jira comment :

Quote

This has now extended to a request for access to all sliders that affect user height.

Here are proposed constants and target skeleton ids:

OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_HEIGHT(33),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_TORSO_LENGTH(38),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_HEEL_HEIGHT(198),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_PLATFORM_HEIGHT(503),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_HEAD_SIZE(682),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_LEG_LENGTH(692),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_NECK_LENGTH(756),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_HIP_LENGTH(842),
OBJECT_BODY_SHAPE_HOVER_HEIGHT(11001)

Reported output is the normalized 8 bit internal value for each, not the decimal internal value.

Use cases entail:

Calculate the same height as shown in Edit Appearance w/ or w/o usage of hover height.
Calculate user height before/during sitting if hover height, platform height and/or heel height is present due to the visual effects of these being lost upon sitting.
Calculate what additional height worn rigged mesh is having on the avatar, which currently is not reported in Edit Appearance.
Calculate Pelvis attach point height from ground while standing and AV Center attach point height from ground while standing.

I think the idea is to be able to adjust scene elements (seats? followers? remotely-controlled attachment offsets? could be lots of stuff) to conform to some details of visiting avatar shapes—specifically in this request, their heights. I'm sure @Lucia Nightfire had specifics in mind, but as a programmer I can see the natural inclination to generalize as far as possible as long as the code is changing anyway—and believe me, there are whole swaths of the SL resident population, myself included, who are a little astounded each time we're reminded that avatar shapes have permissions at all, let alone appear at events as a product category.

[Mollymews]

8 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I think the idea is to be able to adjust scene elements (seats? followers? remotely-controlled attachment offsets? could be lots of stuff) to conform to some details of visiting avatar shapes—specifically in this request, their heights

i thought the chopped down list got chopped down to far

the biggest hassle with avatar animation (other than height) is arm reach, when eating, drinking, smoking, etc, and interacting with vehicle controls: steering wheel, gearstick, etc. Also couples holding and/or touching each other.

I get why the list was chopped down, but I thought the chopped down list would have included: body_width, shoulder_width, hand_size and head_size. Like the height parameters, these width/size parameters are pretty generic, but plenty useful for reach animation

[Gabriele Graves]

Unfortunately, I think this will end up getting the most use by those wanting to detect who has, the often obsessed over, t-rex arms or some other body proportion shortcoming so that they can be auto-banned.

[Qie Niangao]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Unfortunately, I think this will end up getting the most use by those wanting to detect who has, the often obsessed over, t-rex arms or some other body proportion shortcoming so that they can be auto-banned.

I think it's down to just height-related stuff, so the auto-banning will be of realistically-sized avatars, preserving all the usual safe spaces for gigantism—coincidentally the ubiquitous SL affliction promoted by most commercial shapes.

[Gabriele Graves]

Has the wiki entry linked to in Maestro's post for llGetVisualParams not been updated then?

Param ID	Param Name	Description
33	height
38	torso_length
80	male
198	heel_height
503	platform_height
616	shoe_height
692	leg_length
693	arm_length
756	neck_length
814	waist_height
842	hip_length
11001	hover

Edited May 13, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Sayrah Parx]

40 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Unfortunately, I think this will end up getting the most use by those wanting to detect who has, the often obsessed over, t-rex arms or some other body proportion shortcoming so that they can be auto-banned.

Yes, I am still shocked that this made it out of testing because there is absolutely nothing else that the relative shape values could be used for.  Unless of course someone has a formula to convert the relative values to meters.  It would not help at all with adjusting avatar animations otherwise.  I don't speak for anyone, but I don't think this is what anyone ever asked for.  I read Lucia's request as being a way to get actual measurements in meters, which would be really useful.  But no method to calculate those based on the relative shape values has been provided, and may not even be possible to calculate to enough accuracy in practice with the relative values alone.  I think it's early enough that they could just pull the function out completely, and any scripts that get broken for failing to compile it deserve to be broken.  Because the only use it has currently is to spy on the relative 0 to 100 values for someone's shape, which cannot practically be used for any other purpose.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Unfortunately, I think this will end up getting the most use by those wanting to detect who has, the often obsessed over, t-rex arms or some other body proportion shortcoming so that they can be auto-banned.

So, it's a call to arms!

*Edit* I see a use-case. Script for attachment checks and says, "Sorry, your arms are too short for the thingy."

Edited May 13, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Ardy Lay]

You must be at least <parameter> tall to use this sofa.  could become the amazing shrinking sofa?  Uhm, nah, nevermind.  I am sure the inception was better than that.

[Sayrah Parx]

9 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

*Edit* I see a use-case. Script for attachment checks and says, "Sorry, your arms are too short for the thingy."

If there is actually a way to determine arm length based on the relative 0 to 100 shape values, that's great.  But if that were possible to calculate, we would already have things that let someone set them up with their shape values manually.  Suddenly being able to get someone's shape values with a script doesn't magically make it possible to calculate anything useful from those values.  I think it would be great to be proven wrong that it's not possible to calculate measurements from the relative values with enough practical accuracy.  But I haven't seen anything in SL that can calculate measurements from them in almost 14 years.  I'm pretty sure that not being able to get the shapes values with a script was not the problem.

[Qie Niangao]

Well, I'm 100% sure that getting those values by script was exactly the motivation for the feature, but not for all the values that were initially returned. And I am surprised that arm length somehow stayed in the set—not because there aren't perfectly good uses for it, but rather that (most?) such uses would need other values in the shape, and that's the slippery slope they'd want to avoid at this point.

(Note that those uses may presuppose control of the animations pushed on the avatar, and shape + animation + avatar mesh fully determine where, say, a wrist will be. Are there other factors that could affect it?)

 

[Aishagain]

What all the above comments tell me is that this modification was a GOCU (grand ornamental c***-up).  No more, no less, and a huge embarassment to the programmer who worked on it.   What followed was a pathetic effort at face-saving by the LL management.

[Love Zhaoying]

20 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

and a huge embarassment to the programmer who worked on it.

Hey! Us Programmers just do what the requirements say to do!

[Aishagain]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hey! Us Programmers just do what the requirements say to do!

Indeed and no doubt the programmers would be asking a question of those who "required" them to programme this embarrassing mess as to why it happened.  I am bound to ask who kills, the makers of the gun, the owner of the gun factory, or the shooter?

Cue much standing around whistling and asking "gun?  what gun?"

Please note this is not a quasi-political post.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Aishagain

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Aishagain said:

Indeed and no doubt the programmers would be asking a question of those who "required" them to programme this embarrassing mess as to why it happened.  I am bound to ask who kills, the makers of the gun, the owner of the gun factory, or the shooter?

Please note this is not a quasi-political post.

It gets deeper.  Someone wrote the requirements. Programmer followed the requirements. Tester tested that the changes met the requirements. Everybody signed off on it either without asking the right question, or assuming that the requirements were OK.

[Toothless Draegonne]

Toys like little auras that could auto-colour based on the returned RGB values.

HUDs that, yes, give you a clue how someone made their butt wobble like that - we've had attachment spies for long enough and nobody cares about those.

Other trinkets or cantrips that do *things* based on a hash of shape results. But no. Can't do that now because some people got mad about shapes not being super sekrit any more.

 

Oh well. The answer is to put useful shapes up on the MP for zero lindens. Drive the market price for a bunch of slider settings down so far that the people that insisted this function be nerfed, lose their profit margins another way.