Sandbox Priveleges

Greetings!

I just wanted to give a few more thoughts on sandbox privileges.

The ability to work without dancing around the 3 hour auto return on SkyBeam Sandbox is something I strongly wish to continue for all residents of the estates. I think it would be annoying to have to set a timer when first prim is placed and know when to take a copy of your work and have to set it back out to avoid the return. I know that most sandbox users are accustomed to this, but I like to spoil folks when I can :)

The downside is that if we forget to take our work (or leave it out intentionally) we start rapidly eating up the available prims for other users of the sandbox. Your 50 or a 100 or even 300 prims doesn't sound like much against 3000 available... but if even ten of us leave out our creations or toys, it doesn't take long to start hitting out of prim errors!

I don't ever want to be responsible for someone losing their hard work. Using auto-return or manually returning the prims is likely to return things to you in a state that renders them difficult, if not impossible, to piece back together. This grieves me if I ever have to do it. So I beg you, please take a copy before you go.

If you crash out, please try to get word to me somehow... through a friend who can get online, or via email to my avatar name at SkyBeamEstates.com, and we'll mark it with some sort of official do not delete sign.

Otherwise, please expect that it will be deleted once noted as out in the sandbox, including up on our restricted platforms, for longer than 12 hours.

Thank you all for your cooperation with this. You are simply the best residents anyone could have and I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Char

Oh, Noes! I'm going to Jail!!!!

That's right! A warrant for my arrest has been issued! Our official affiliation with Team Caledon and Relay For Life has cost me my liberty! Apparently I have not contributed enough to the efforts and they are arresting me! I have no idea what bail will be set at, but its going to be up to all of you to come bail me out!

Nevar and Ame will be sure to get the notice out about where to find me and so on! I expect to be serving my sentence from 12pm to 2pm SL time on Sunday! Please please don't leave me to rot in there! I don't have time to be sitting around on my bum!

*hugs*

Char

Abode Designs joins SkyBeam!

This weekend our very own Serra Anansi hosts the grand opening of her newest enterprise : a'bode!



Please stop by and enjoy!

Char

And another JIRA - Water like Linden water on prims...

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3260

It would be awesome to be able to replicate the water effects the linden water has on prims...

Cheers!

Char

JIRA du jour...

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-208

This one is begging for more group space and maybe different types of groups that might take less network traffic...

I think we can almost all agree we need more groups if they can find a way to do it without over-stressing the grid...

Char

Raising the Flag...

... well I might if I had one... so here's the deal. There's a contest out for the estates to design the SkyBeam Estates flag. A notecard should have wound its way to you via the group notices. If not, contact me directly for a copy or see the group only sign on SkyBeam Estates region for a copy. You must be in the SkyBeam Estates group for this sign to work as its only open to folks on the estates.

If you have any questions, just IM me, Nevar Lobo or Amethyst Starostin!

--Char

Dogs, Cats, Lag and Prims

Written by Emileigh Starbrook
Thursday, 22 May 2008 16:54
Reprinted with Permission

We all love pets - they are an outlet for our love and are the non-judgemental companions that provide a theraputic emotional boost when we are down. They are cute, cuddly and have adorable ways of communicating. They are our protectors and our playmates. Residents in Costa Rica have dogs, cats, dolphins, fish, jellyfish, octopuses, puffer fish, birds, butterflies and other assorted animals, all of which have the potential to be physical. In Second Life, they fill a gap between a boring game and realism.

Unfortunately they contribute a tonne of lag (and before my fellow scripters jump on me, it isn't always script or texture lag.) It is because they are generally (though not always) physical - as physical as avatars, planes, sailboats and cars. And as physical entities, they produce collisions that requires complex processing and severely impact server performance. This may be a hard concept to understand, so lets go step by step.

What is a collision?
A collision occurs when a physical entity (an avatar, for example) collides with a non-physical entity (a prim) or another physical entity. This collision generates a collision event - in fact lots of them. To show you how this happens, create a 10x10x0.5 "floor" (square plywood prim) and then in the Contents tab create a new script and replace the default code with the following:


default
{
state_entry()
{
}

collision_start(integer num)
{
while(num)
llSay(0,llDetectedName(--num) + " has started to collide");
}

collision_end(integer num)
{
while(num)
llSay(0,llDetectedName(--num) + " has stopped colliding");
}

collision(integer num)
{
while(num)
llSay(0,llDetectedName(--num) + " is still colliding" );
}
}

Now walk across the prim - what happens? Well, you can see how collision reports will quickly fill up your screen. This is because collisions (by default) can be reported up to 20 times per second. The good news is that most prims do not contain the collision detection code, and collisions are quickly ignored. However this is not always the case with pets.

Why Pets are Bad
Pets are bad for a number of reasons:

1. They have to detect collisions and make complicated decisions about how to behave
2. They have complex prim structures that require them to move in unison
3. They have to detect collisions in multiple prims
4. They usually have sensors (radar) to detect owners (so they come to you) and intruders

Lets consider a typical dog - it will put out a radar "ping" to see if an avatar is nearby. It will then move in the direction that avatar is located. All the while it is firing off radar pings to insure the avatar is in range. If this scenario happens in an open field, it's not quite so bad - the dog takes a straight line course to the avatar, collides with it, and then behaves like a real life dog would do - attack an intruder, lick or jump up on an owner or friend.

Why Pets in Houses are Worse
Pets in houses are worse. They are surrounded by prims (walls, floors, ceilings and furniture) and they have no way of knowing which obstacles are in the way. The collision detection/sensor systems act like the eyes and nose of a dog. If we go back to the previous scenario, see what happens. The avatar is outside the house, and the dog collides with the wall trying to get to it. It may take many actions including moving around tracking the avatar - colliding with furniture, moving left or right (only to collide with an adjacent wall) barking, jumping and generating thousands of collisions along the way. Physical fish designed to be put in the ocean will really cause severe problems in fish tanks.

Why Pets in Some Houses are Twice as Bad
Unfortunately some houses also have collision detectors built in. These can range from door openers to wall and floor-based security systems (like our floor example.) The result of this is that there are now twice as many collisions occuring - the same collision is reported to the dog and wall/floor/door opener. The result is that instead of 20 collisions per second, it is now 40 or 60. We have measured these in most sims and in one house, the kittens were generating over 300 collisions per second!

What Residents Should Do
We want you to enjoy your Second Life and the realism it provides, but unfortunately pets are having a severe impact on performance. We don't want to impose restrictions, so for now we ask that you voluntary stick to the following guidelines.

1. Please do not keep physical pets in your house unless they are in sleep mode.
2. Keep pets outside - most pets do not detect ground collisions
3. Turn them off or put them into inventory if you are not present on the property.
4. Do ask an estate manager to measure your pet's "lag contributions" if you are unsure

Also be aware of what you have that is physical - you can determine this by turning on a physics beacon. Torley Linden has a good VidTut if you do not know how to use beacons.

**************

Thank you, Em, for this great guideline to pets in Second Life.

Please be aware of this and understand if I ever come to chat about your particular pet.

Cheers!
Char

JIRA

Ok, so what is a JIRA and why should you care?

The JIRA is a system Second Life has employed in order to provide a system of bug reporting and modification/feature requesting by its users.

The system is a bit clunky and cumbersome, its difficult to figure out how to use it, how to find out if there are already bug reports or mod/feature requests about what you want to report or request (you have to think like the other person does to be able to search and get valid responses) and, even logging in the first time challenged me (could they make the little Log In text any smaller?)...

So that said, why should you bother? Well, I'm a strong believer in using any system provided to give as much useful feedback to the programmers/creators/powers that be as possible. Often repeatedly over months and years if necessary :) Have I mentioned I can be just a bit stubborn?

Whenever I come across a JIRA that I feel is particularly noteworthy of attention, I will bring it up here for you to consider and vote your own conscience on. I do not ever expect blind alignment with my views. If you like it, sign in and vote for it. If you don't like it, don't touch it (in grand yes-man fashion, there is no means of casting a 'no' vote save by commenting in your disagreement).

I believe this to be part of helping all my residents be aware and informed, not just about SkyBeam but about SL in general.

Today's JIRAs:

WEB-655

The sign on screen used to have the most recent main Second Life blog entries. Now it shows only the most recent status report blog entries, which have been separated (my own pet theory is so that the front page of the main blog isn't cluttered with 'ooh, we have issues again' entries and further shields the public eye from the constant problems...). This setup precludes people from catching note of new Torley tutorials and other interesting bits that show up on the main blog. Ideally, I'd like to see the four most recent posts of *both* blogs in separate sections...

SVC-2387

Give us a means to allow scripters to see the top scripts and top colliders in a region without being an estate manager. Too many badly scripted items abound, causing spikes in scripting time and dragging down regional performance.

SVC-2388

An adaptation to collider filtering. Contact Emileigh Starbrook for explanation as I'm no scripter and have no clue on this one. LOL.

Look for JIRA education to make its way into a 'coming soon' educational facility on the estates somewhere yet to be precisely determined... probably co-located with or near the coming soon Library...

Char

SkyBeam Rose Society and SkyBeam Cooks!

I've scheduled the inaugural meetings of my first two community pet projects:

SkyBeam Rose Society May 31, 2008 9am-11am

SkyBeam Cooks! June 5, 2008 6:30-8pm


Both can have second sessions at alternate time zone times as dictated by those who wish to participate. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

SkyBeam Rose Society has a full out in-world group, SkyBeam Cooks! does not. I intend to use Subscrib-O-Matic to send notices so that no one has to join a group to be a member and get notices. It seems the best alternative. Look for the subscrib-o-matic sign ups on the new SkyBeam Estate region, yes, just sitting out in the open for now, and in the Sandbox somewhere near-ish the landing point later today.

For now, both will meet on SkyBeam Moving Waves until I have the estate office set up the way I want... Do we have a pool going yet on how soon that will happen? I'll take second week in August...

If any of you have bright ideas on places that have advertising opportunities available and tie in with gardening as a place to promote the rose society and get some in-world awareness building, let me know.

SkyBeam Cooks! is open to the public but I will mostly be promoting within the estate community. Bring friends as applicable!

Cheers!
Char

Pastures Referral Reminder!

Don't forget! If you refer a friend who purchases a parcel within the estate, you will get 10% of the purchase price your friend pays for his/her parcel! So if you know anyone rearing to go (pun intended!) for some nice horsey land, send them my way!

Parcel map is out on SkyBeam Trailridge and the SkyBeam Estates region just waiting for little 'reserved' floating text to appear on each parcel map pin!

That brings up the all new SkyBeam Comedy routine...

"Hi! Where are you at?"

"On SkyBeam Estates."

"Which region?"

"SkyBeam Estates."

"Right, but which region?"

"SkyBeam Estates!"



So, the main office and community center region bears the estate name... this is and will be confusing but also lets someone use the map, type in SkyBeam Estates and find us... so... we'll get used to, I suppose.

For as much clarification as I can hope to provide, if I say SkyBeam Estates region, or SBE region, I mean the actual office/community center region. If I don't use the word region, I'm talking about the estates at large. Feel free to tease me mercilessly if I forget!

Char

SkyBeam Community!

Just a reminder that I've started a second group to have our chatter sessions in called SkyBeam Community!

What I use SkyBeam Estates for:

1) Covenant change notices. If I change covenant, I give notice and you have 10 days to accept or decline the revisions. Silence and remaining on the estate is assumed to be acceptance of the changes, so if you don't know its changed, I assume you do and are ok with it!

2) To introduce new residents. I would do this on community, but since the new community group is optional, the new resident may not be part of it to hear their warm welcome.

3) For residents and guardians to call for help. Subsequent chatter should be moved to the community channel or just not happen.


What I intend SkyBeam Community to be:

1) For me to say hello to everyone whenever its appropriate and to blather about estate news of whatever sort.

2) For everyone else to be able to pop in, say hi, ask for help with *anything* (anyone know where to get a good ? or anyone know how to do ?), gripe about sl performance, chatter about whatever anyone else wants to join in about, and so on.

3) Allow prospective residents or non-residents with an interest in our community and its activities, to have a group they can join and be a part of the fun!


SkyBeam Community is an optional group. You can find it in search groups (at least if you can get search groups to work better than I can), or in my profile. If you use my profile to find it, please double click the group and it will open the window you can use to join the group.

I love being able to open a window and chat with whoever is on, so I hope many of you feel comfortable joining in!

*hugs*
Char

The race for the Triple Crown is on!

And we're gonna party! That's right, Big Brown has won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and we're headed for what might possibly be the first triple crown winner in thirty years!

Ok, so you're not a racing fan or horse buff... why do you care? Cause we're going to party, of course!!! Mark your calendars now! June 7, 2008 from 1-4pm and again from 7-10 pm. The later party will be either celebrating or drowning their sorrows depending on the outcome, but either way the day is also slated to be the grand opening of SkyBeam Pastures, so you know I'll be treating everyone right with prizes, great dj's and all sorts of fun!

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Char

Waterworks!!!

Erix took a little tour around the waterways around SkyBeam Estates and was kind enough to make a wonderful video of the experience!



Enjoy!
Char

A Rose by Any Other Name....

So, for the SkyBeam trivia buffs out there... Our first region, Scepterd Isle, was actually named after my favorite rose in my rose garden! I dug up the Shakespearean quote the name came from after deciding what to name the region.

After much departure from rose names, I'm pleased to welcome another region to our realm, an Open Space, named Tuscan Sun... another rose that graces my garden!

Tuscan Sun will be a quaint Tuscan style village and has replaced Fox, with Fox moving south (the names will be changed to reflect reality as soon as LL can catch up with us!!!). Dylon Matova is busy creating his vision of what this gorgeous, hilly valley will become!

********

While sort of on the topic of roses, for those who garden, grow roses, want to grow roses or just like to dream about growing roses, I am working on starting an in world rose society, dedicated to discussing the best ways to grow and care for our precious bushes.

SkyBeam Rose Society exists as group, feel free to join if it happens to be an interest you share with me. Look for the first meeting to be the third Saturday in June at 9am!

Char

Group Land Prims....

Greetings!

It has come to my attention that in some areas there prims being set to the SkyBeam Estates group over SkyBeam Estates group land that do not belong there.

POLICY: Permanent placement of prims on group land is done with approval of Charlene Trudeau only. For the most part, this means that only prims I have set out or prims I've requested Nevar Lobo to set out may be group set prims on group land.

Notes:

On double prim land, it is very easy to believe the group land has thousands upon thousands of available prims to utilize. This simply isn't true. A region only has 15,000 prims allowed, regardless of the prim bonus setting, but when a prim bonus multiplier is set to 2.0 EVERY parcel in the region, including the estate open land, shows double its normally allotted prims. Since the group land is in EXCESS of 50% of the square meters, its default shown allotted prims is the max 15,000 prims (even if double would put it at 16,000....).

In order for the residents of the region to have all of the prims allotted to them, it is therefore vital that the group land remain under the amount truly reserved for it. In most cases, this is in a range from 468 prims to maybe around double that. No resident has any way of knowing how many prims are reserved for group AND those not in use are designed so that folks may rez things temporarily to enjoy the land.

Most violations currently around the estate are a couple of prims here and there, but we have violations of over 100 prims too!

I know it can be difficult when working up in skyboxes, but there are systems to determine parcel borders from the ground...not the least of which (and cheapest!) is building a basic platform at ground level and sending the pieces up to the desired height by changing the z coordinate in edit (if you don't know how, please feel free to ask!) and with the latest set of mega prims, likely there is a prim sized for your parcel already!

I (and/or Nevar) will be sending out quiet notices throughout the next couple of days with the prim count of any violations directly to the owner of the prims that I show anchored on group land and set to group (or, in a couple of small instances, possibly not set to group but auto return happens to have been left off accidentally on the group land).

Wherever possible I will *not* return your prims out of hand without best effort to contact you so that your items may be most safely retrieved by you.

I will be happy to help you locate the prims in question if needed, or you can send a request to myself or Nevar to auto return them if you think they are of no consequence.

Please note that I have NO issue with you using group to set up a picnic with a reasonable prim count, or rezzing a low prim boat to sail around in, but you do need to clean up when you're finished.

In closing, please remember that using the group area prims permanently is effectively robbing neighbors (or even your own parcel!) of prims... If everyone set out their max, someone WOULD get an out of prim error message even if they still should have available prims!!!

Thank you all for listening to me rant!

*Hugs*

Char

A Million What???!!!

Ok, so we're growing. Courtesy of Open Space regions, we are growing fast and furious, even!

With three regions still to arrive this month (that I know of!), we have 18 regions (one is remotely placed) and over ONE MILLION square meters of virtual land to our regions!

I'm pleased to announce that since my last post, the following regions have arrived:

SkyBeam Trailridge, the bridge to the new equestrian themed regions!

SkyBeam Harbour Cove, adjoining trailridge and cradled by mountains, this Open Space cove region will be home to the Harbor Cove Sailing Club! Neill McCullough, formerly of SkyBeam Tradewinds, is the resident owner and is busy building the marina!

Fox, south of SkyBeam FirstLand, is home to our very own Erix Oh. He's moving the FoxReports headquarters there and has some great plans for the rest of the space! I'm looking forward to seeing it come to life!

Ok! That's how we got here and its time to celebrate! So I'm hosting a Millionth Meter Party on Saturday, May 17, 2008. There will be two parties to catch multiple time zones again, one from 1-4pm and one from 7-10pm. Dress code is 'come as you are' and I'll be giving away a free week of tier (or rent for FirstLand residents) or $L 2000 (whichever is greater) to one lucky attendee of each party! If you aren't a resident, you get the cash! If you are, you get the tier credit!

DJ Dakota Christensen will be rocking us along from 1-4 and BCreative Wilde will be spinning the night shift for us! I'm looking forward to dancing with everyone out on SkyBeam Trailridge!

Anyone who'd like to volunteer to make a nice barn dance set up for us (expenses paid within reason) is welcome to IM me!

Char

New Region Maps -- SkyBeam First Cove

The first of a few new region maps is on display in the SkyBeam Estate office (the original on SkyBeam (45,46,39). The region will be placed east of SkyBeam Tradewinds and north of SkyBeam FirstLand, altering the views for those two regions.

SkyBeam First Cove will be based on the SkyBeam FirstLand concept, but with some significant differences:

1) This will be an Open Space region, limiting the number of parcels available.

2) Owing to #1, this will be residential only as the scripting capacity won't handle several businesses with scripted vendors or sale boxes.

3) Because it is a new tier region (FirstLand is old tier), the rent will be $L 600 per week instead of $L 500. Rental deposit remains the same at $L 1 per m2.

4) I will recut parcels to have adjoining borders for a single renter where possible.

I wanted my residents to have the earliest possible notice of the new expansion. Coming in the next 24-48 hours will be maps for:

SkyBeam Estates (our new HQ open space region)
SkyBeam Trailridge (the first of the planned SkyBeam equestrian themed regions)

The map for Trailridge will probably extend to a few of the other planned equestrian regions, but only Trailridge will appear in the next couple of weeks.

There will also be an Open Space region coming in south of Scepterd Isle for one of our existing residents who will keep a large body of water towards Scepterd Isle and plans a ferry to cross the divide!

I have enrolled in the Land Store beta test program, so I will be able to order Open Space regions (and full regions too) more or less on the fly if all goes well starting tomorrow!

For the record, new Open Space regions have a target asking price of $L 45,000 and a weekly tier fee of $L 6750. There is no change to tier for existing Open Space residents, but please keep the new tier in mind should you decide to sell your region... the price will NOT be grandfathered to new residents!

More soon!
Char

Things that aren't temp rez...

After just the first few response questions, let me add a few notes about things that aren't temp-rezzers or prohibited:

Particle emitters - this is an entirely different technology and we each have the ability to limit the number of particles that can burden our screen at any given time. This generally includes things like butterflies and flowers that appear and disappear, much as a temp-rezzer might.

Rez Vendors - there are two types, one does use temp rez technology, the other uses a one time permanent rezzing of an object that has a 'die' command built in. When a new object is selected for view, the old object is deleted first before the new object is rezzed. These prims count fully against the parcel prim counts, do not generally use a timer based system (though they might) and do not overlap the objects onto each other (unless SL has particular issues, in which case the old one will never delete without owner intervention). This latter type of vendor is perfectly acceptable.

There are now homes being sold that use temp-rez technology as a feature, too, so be careful of any home that promises that it uses fewer prims on a parcel than it is built with. If you have doubts before purchase, contact the builder or ask me if I can pop over to take a look and see if I think its temp rez.

For the most part, however, you generally would know if you're using temp rez as you would likely have had to put the object or objects into the rezzer system and have studied the documentation on how it works to bypass prim counts on your parcel.

Char

Temp Rezzers... Includes Covenant Change Info

To continue with the second part of my discussion on things that effect our experience in Second Life®, I must bring up the subject of Temp Rezzers.

These devices are apparently wonderfully clever ways to bypass prim restrictions on our parcels. In reality, while they do trick the region (sim) into allowing more prims than are otherwise allowed on a parcel, they are still using overall region resources.

The regions are especially hard hit during the time the temp rezzer produces a new temporary copy of the object while deleting the old one. During this moment there is a spike in scripting time, images time, and a drop in region frames per second (fps). This is most likely due in part to both instances of the object appearing very briefly in the same spot at the same time (causing a collisions spike, new rendering for each client/avatar in draw distance range, and the scripting effects).

All temp rezzers also have a timer going, which counts down to the next delete and refresh of the object(s). It gets even worse when several temp rezzers are activate at one time in a region, whether on the same or different time cycles. They will almost always hit times when they will cycle simultaneously and cause even more drastic spiking in region performance.

If I change things so that a limited number of temp rezzers may be used per parcel, we will still have the potential for severe performance hits if even three different parcels in a region choose to use these devices.

Taking all of the above into consideration, at this time I am amending the covenant to prohibit temp rezzers within the contiguous estates. Open Space regions that are not connected to the main estates may use temp rezzers at their own discretion.

I am truly sorry for any inconvenience this poses to any of my residents, but I am trying to work for the greater good of the entire community.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact me.

Char

Avatar Rendering Cost ....

As we move along in exploring our second lives together, we become more aware of how we effect the regions we live, explore, work and play in. Today, I'd like to discuss two of these areas, beginning with Avatar Rendering Cost.

Estate owners have long been aware that the things avatars choose to wear and accessorize with have an impact on region performance, especially the more crowded a region becomes (busy stores, crowded events, etc). With the introduction of the latest Release Candidate client, there is now a way to view a 'score' or metric of Avatar Rendering Cost. This is in the 'Advanced' menu (turn on by clicking ctl-alt-shift-d), under 'rendering -- info displays -- Avatar Rendering Cost'. Scores below 1000 seem to be region friendly, 1000-1500 are cautionary and anything above 1500 begin to suck resources badly.

Since I've been playing with watching these scores, I've seen perfectly normal looking humans that have weighed in over 5000 on this scale and very complex appearing primmed animal avatars weighing in under 1000. It will be interesting to watch in the future to see if designers take this metric into consideration as they design their wares.

Please bear in mind that avatar rendering is a *client* side issue, rather than truly a region performance issue, but to the person trying to move around a region, lag is lag, whether its client side (your computer) or server side (sl's side).

All prims effect the score, but flexi seems to hit things particularly hard. I have two favorite hair styles and the full long one hits me for a couple hundred points more than the more compact ponytail style (fewer flexi prims). I had one outfit where the 67 prim per arm flexi cuffs shot me up over 1000 points alone. I have always been very conscious of how my choice in outfits effects regions, and now even more so. It makes me really leery of spending freely on higher cost gowns and outfits when I might refuse to wear them due to their rendering cost and burden on *others* viewing my avatar.

Something to think about!

For more technical info, please see the Linden Lab® blog post here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/01/who-me-yes-you-couldnt-be-then-who-introducing-avatar-rendering-cost/

Char