Kyle Linden

We’re happy to unveil our experiments with using the Lua scripting language as part of our content and customization tool box. Possible areas of application include test automation, mods/plugins, and new options for content visible to the user, like HUDs, local content etc . Many other sandbox worlds use Lua and we are excited to see how this approach to content creation can enrich Second Life as well. For now, you can follow our development in github and we will let everyone know when a project viewer is ready for testing on the beta grid. To all Third Party Viewer developers, please let us know what you think about Lua in the viewer!

Thanks! We've filed a bug to get this fixed.

Hello bcastro04, we have just today announced the requirement of MacOS 11 as the minimum to run Second Life. There is however an older version of the Second Life viewer you may still use. Details in the following blog post.

Greetings Residents! Over the next several weeks PBR Materials will be rolling out across the grid. For those who do not know what PBR Materials are already, this post will explain what they are, how to use them and the benefits they bring. This announcement is particularly of interest to residents who create inworld objects and avatar attachments. PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering. PBR is a richer way of specifying the surface of an object that better simulates how objects appear in real life. PBR allows for realistic lighting for metals, plastics, leather, fabric, and more, including realistic reflections and bounce lighting. The Second Life Viewer will now be able to display these more realistic-appearing objects in world, as well as allow creators to include this more advanced information in the object texturing. GLTF stands for Graphics Library Transmission Format. This is a standard file format, common in computer graphics, that allows storage of PBR information. GLTF files can be used by many 3D content authoring tools. Second Life will now support the import and export of GLTF files that contain PBR information. Note that at this time only PBR Materials will be imported. Full GLTF support will be available at a later date. Important note: Until PBR server support is released across the entire Second Life grid, there is a risk of damaging content to which PBR Materials are applied, if rezzed or worn in a region that is not PBR-capable. At present, you will need to use the latest Second Life release candidate viewer with PBR support 7.0.1.6658224456 and be on PBR capable regions running on BlueSteel and Le Tigre channels with build (2023-10-11.6488746491). To confirm you are using the correct viewer and server, while running Second Life open Help > About Second Life. What are PBR Materials? Why would I use them in my creations? The goal behind PBR Materials is Increased visual realism. One method of enhancing realism is to create scenes with real reflections which mimic how our eyes have learned to identify that a surface is metal versus plastic. The Viewer has always been open source and so we sought an open source solution, GLTF, to achieve this realism. GLTF was created by the Khronos Group https://www.khronos.org/, a standards body responsible for open standards such as OpenGL, OpenXR, Vulkan, and others. With this new Viewer feature, PBR Materials will automatically generate real reflections when applied to new or existing content. While we cannot go back and add PBR Materials to no-mod content -- only the original content creator can -- every effort has been made to preserve or improve all object appearances in world. The team has been working with content creators for many months, and we thank them all for their dedication to making Second Life the benchmark for beautiful inworld content. What if you do not create content? If you do not create inworld content or avatar attachments, you do not need to do anything as a result of these changes. You will begin to see more realistic reflections and lighting on objects inworld and for sale as creators adopt this new feature. New Features The key additions and changes for PBR Materials are: GLTF support for PBR Materials HDR Environments Auto exposure and tonemapping The default environment of Second Life has always been a sunny day with blue skies and this will be more apparent now. Reflection Probes (automatic and manual) Automatically generated by the PBR Viewer Manually generated by content creators for interior spaces (requires lighting) Materials system folder Benefits GLTF standards are widely accepted and utilized for content creation across many applications PBR Materials objectively and subjectively look better Real reflections automatically generated by the Viewer Increased compatibility with content creation tools e.g. Substance Painter, Blender There is a wonderful video from Second Life University on our Youtube channel. We encourage anyone wishing to learn more to take a look: How to Create PBR Materials The Second Life Wiki has more technical information about GLTF PBR Materials and how to use them in the content you create. Known Issues While our GLTF PBR Materials project is closer than ever to full release, there are some known issues and we know with broader release, more issues will be uncovered. If you see something, please say something, by filing a BUG report in Jira. PBR material information may be lost from content on non-PBR aware regions Underwater reflections are weird. We hope to fix this in a future release Materials set to alpha mode Blend cannot be changed back to Opaque MacOS performance issues Poor performance on Apple Silicon when “Reflection Coverage” not set to “None” Poor performance on Intel Macbooks when shadows are enabled PBR Material limited permissions issues Transition lines between overlapping manual probes Semi-transparent fullbright objects slightly more opaque Non-PBR enabled Viewers will show high packet loss on PBR aware regions due to the introduction of a new message. There are inworld Content User Group Meetings we encourage you to attend to discuss your questions and give feedback. For more information see Content User Group IMPORTANT: If content looks good in the Khronos GLTF Sample Viewer or Adobe Substance Painter but looks wrong when you import it into Second Life, please stop and file a bug immediately. Our goal is to adhere to the GLTF specification. Please do not modify content in Second Life to work around situations where the Viewer does not adhere completely to the GLTF spec.

Today we are happy to announce a significant update for both the Second Life RC (release candidate) PBR Viewer and GLTF project server. For PBR materials to render correctly in Second Life, residents must use the latest versions listed below. Second Life RC viewer version (7.0.0.581886) or newer. And be on supporting GLTF server regions named "Rumpus Room 1-4" Second Life server version (2023-09-28.6340659568) or newer. GLTF PBR Materials efforts were slowed recently by a potentially costly issue. PBR Materials contain a great deal of new information which is stored in the objects that use these materials. When such objects are updated, and updates happen surprisingly often, the entire set of information about the object is transmitted. The amount of data transmitted multiplied by the frequency of transmission adds up quickly. Reducing the amount of data transmitted required a change to the protocol used for sending this information. Many thanks to one of our resident beta testers, animats (Joe Magarac), for spotting this issue and reporting it swiftly. These changes will allow creators to make richer, more realistic objects in world, so we believe that the efforts involved will pay off, and that all residents will enjoy the results of these changes. More GLTF PBR updates are on the way, please stay tuned!

📢 Important Announcement: End of Support for Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer and Updated Minimum System Requirements for MacOS to 10.13 🖥️🕒 Attention Second Life community members! We have some important news to share regarding software compatibility and system requirements. Please read this post carefully to ensure a smooth transition. As of July 1st, 2023, we will be ending support for the Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer and updating the minimum system requirements for MacOS to 10.13. This decision is made to align with the evolving technology landscape and to ensure the best performance and security for our residents. 👉 Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer: The 32-bit Windows version of the Second Life Viewer will no longer be supported. Moving forward, we will focus our efforts on the 64-bit version, which provides improved stability, enhanced performance, and better utilization of modern hardware. We encourage all residents to transition to the 64-bit version to continue enjoying the latest features and updates. After July 1st, we will continue to allow the last supported version of the Second Life 32-bit Windows viewer to log in indefinitely. 👉 MacOS 10.13 Minimum Requirements: Starting July 1st, MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra) will be the minimum requirement for running Second Life. This decision is driven by the need to utilize the latest advancements in operating systems and maintain compatibility with the most up-to-date technologies. Users on MacOS older than 10.13 will need to upgrade their operating system to a newer version to access future Second Life viewer updates. We understand that change can be challenging, but this step is necessary to provide the best and most secure experience for our residents. We highly recommend keeping your software and hardware up to date to benefit from enhanced performance, security patches, and new features. If you are currently using the 32-bit Windows Viewer or running MacOS older than 10.13, please take the following actions: 1️⃣ Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer Users: If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows, you will first need to update to a 64-bit version of Windows before attempting to update Second Life. Ensure your computer meets the system requirements for the 64-bit Viewer. Back up your preferences and settings before making the transition. Download and install the 64-bit version of the Second Life Viewer. 2️⃣ MacOS Users Older than 10.13: Check the Apple support website for information on upgrading your operating system. Upgrade to a supported version of MacOS that meets Second Life's minimum requirements. Before upgrading, backup your important files and make sure your system is compatible with the newer version of MacOS. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please reach out to our support team, who will be happy to help you. Thank you for being a part of our Second Life community, and we look forward to continuing this virtual journey together!

Greetings Residents! Please note that with the release of the Second Life Viewer Maintenance Preferences, Positions and Paste fixes (build 6.6.8.576863) we are making the decision to sort the alpha blending of rigged mesh attachments by the priority assigned to each attachment point. For example, the Chest attachment ID is 1 and is treated with highest priority. We know this change will require that some alpha blended rigged mesh content will need to be moved to new attachment points. Residents should be able to do this for themselves in many cases, but content creators may need to adjust their product attachment points to account for the new changes. One of our Residents has written their own blog post explaining this in much greater detail and can be found at: https://beqsother.blogspot.com/2022/11/alpha-blend-issues-get-them-sorted.html As always, if you believe you have found a bug, please file a Bug report at https://jira.secondlife.com

Hello, Please see my reply in the following thread as this warning message is valid for those with real inventory issues and not just related to the debug setting "NoInventoryLibrary". Thanks!

Hello everyone, This error message is New Behavior in the Second Life viewer and is there to let you know that your inventory has problems. Please see the release notes for the build we promoted to default release on Monday, 2022/2/28 for more details. https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.5.3.568554.html The sooner you contact support to get this issue resolved the better! Inventory issues may compound over time if you keep trying to connect to Second Life before getting it fixed by Support. Please Contact Support directly at https://support.secondlife.com/create-case and once logged in choose, Submit a Case and select Technical Question > Inventory Issue and complete the rest of the form to get assistance. Our amazing support team is aware of the issue and is on the look out for these new Support cases. Thanks! P.S. We have reports that those who have chosen to change the debug setting, NoInventoryLibrary to True, will both trigger this error message and not be able to load their inventory. That issue has been reported at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-231865 and the quick work around is to change that setting to False. If you are still seeing the error message, you should still contact support. P.P.S. Clearing Cache and relaunching Second Life will not resolve this specific new warning message.

Hello Yuumo, That's a very interesting observation. We would be curious to know more details about the issue, but as it may expose information about Alts or Groups, please file a Bug Report at https://jira.secondlife.com and set the Security level to Triagers and Reporter only. When you file a Bug report in our Jira please include as much information as possible including dates, times, groups involved and all Second Life log files. Thank you!

To confirm, this is a known bug in AWS regions and there is a workaround. Please use web profiles at https://my.secondlife.com to add or remove permissions. However, if this does not work either, please contact support. Note: As of this writing, some parts of profiles may be inaccessible. See https://status.secondlifegrid.net/incidents/mwpxz87d7gfh for more details.

Just to clarify, I made a false assumption that Lucia had previously requested to be one of the first included in the AWS region moves given their active involvement in so many aspects of Second Life. I realize now that was not the case. Lucia's region is not currently selected to be moved to AWS this week, as of 2020-10-19 17:20. If at some point their region (or anyone's region) is moved to AWS, it is best to follow the standard processes of filing bug reports for new issues. Sorry for any confusion, it's been a long Monday.

Hi Lucia, There are a lot of moving parts right now and they're moving very quickly. We certainly do not want to cause any complications to your products by moving your region to AWS at an inopportune time, however, we cannot facilitate individual requests like this. It must be opt-in or opt-out of moving your region to AWS. If you opt-out to avoid KVP timing issues we can always include your region in the next batch. Thanks!

Thank you for the bug report Lucia. The issue is confirmed and we have posted a status update for it. https://status.secondlifegrid.net/incidents/w2b3wbx72hqh

Hi Marconer, I highly suspect you have encountered a known issue, see https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-225655. The quick fix is to try our new EEP Second Life Viewer, with the caveat that it is a release candidate and may have other unresolved issues. You may download that viewer here: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.0.538823.html If this does not fix the issue please contact support, as you may have other software or hardware issues that need further diagnosis. You may contact support here: https://lindenlab.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new Thanks!