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Eighth pre-alpha release for testing

June 7, 2024 - Version 0.8.0

This is still very experimental, with many features not implemented. It's offered for test use only. Please use a low-value alt account.

Changes

  • This is a stabilty update. Functionality is similar to 0.7.0
  • Two major crash bugs have been fixed. This version has run successfully for 18 hours wthout crashing.
  • There is a a remaining crash bug in Rend3.This tends to happen within a minute or two of login, or not at all. It's rare and hard to reproduce. Please report any crashes.
  • Sit/stand animations should now work for scripted sits. Previously, other viewers watching a Sharpview-controlled avatar would see the avatar stuck in a sit posture.

Known problems

  • Clicking on objects is very coarse. It's using a bounding box around the entire prim. So get close and have a clear shot to the thing you are clicking on.
  • Touching down after flying will not end "Fly" mode.
  • Some Second Life regions will still be slow to appear. This sim-side bug is now fixed on a few regions on the beta grid, and should be fixed grid-wide in the near future.
  • Double region crossings with vehicles in Second Life are working better. Failures are still possible but rarer.
  • Region crossings in Open Simulator only work in some regions with a recent fix. Ubittest <-> Ubittest2 works.
  • Results in other regions may vary. We're working with the Open Simulator developers to clean this up.
  • In Open Simulator, entering a new region with an avatar on a vehicle may result in some vehicle parts being missing. The next region crossing will clean up the problem. This is a combination of a simulator bug and the lack of a workaround in Sharpview for that bug. The C++ viewers handle this more gracefully.
  • Motion extrapolation across region crossings needs work. Motion is far too jerky.
  • Frame rates vary too much. This is a problem with lock conflicts at the Rend3/WGPU level.
    Working on that.
  • Open Simulator regions larger that 1024m x 1024m will cause an error, because the land mesh builder does not yet optimize large land meshes.
    1024 x 1024 regions and smaller work.
    There's also 1-meter gap in the ground at each region boundary, because region splicing is not implemented yet.

Notes

  • The four nearest regions are displayed. Objects are always shown at High level of detail.
    The world looks good, but we pay for that in network bandwidth.
    200Mb/sec is normal and 400Mb/sec is possible. If your Internet connection has data transfer limits,
    this can result in high bills.
  • If the viewer's cache is on a rotating hard disk, performance will be disappointing.
    A solid-state disk is needed.

Unimplemented features

  • Avatars are still blocks. Viewpoint is always first-person.
  • Texture animation is unimplemented.
  • New materials (PBR) are unimplemented.
  • Teleports are unimplemented.
  • Very little of the standard user interface is implemented.
  • Windows and Linux are supported, but not, as yet, MacOS.

Reporting bugs

- If there's a panic, there should be a popup. Please take a screenshot
and send to "info@animats.com".

This test release is being made available to a few volunteers for initial testing. Please do not re-distribute. Use a low-value alt account when testing.

Report problems to info@animats.com. Please attach a screenshot of any panic messages.