Release Notes

Colin Linden

Second Life 1.4.0 Release Notes, June 15, 2004[]

More detailed information on the new features in Second Life 1.4 can be found in the starter guide that can be found at http://secondlife.com/download/guides.php

Audio[]

Audio in Second Life has been improved, with a rewrite of the core audio engine. New features and improvements to existing features include:

HTTP audio streaming on a per-parcel basis. You can specify an HTTP audio stream on a parcel from the parcel properties pane, which will be played on a parcel if the user has enabled streaming audio.
Audio can now be localized to your parcel by checking the "Local Sound(?)" check box in the parcel options dialog. This is the equivalent of putting that parcel inside a soundproof box - no outside sounds will be played in the parcel, and none of your sounds will be heard outside of the parcel.

Mute no longer requires a restart to take effect, and will properly stop transfers of audio data.
Sound preloads should no longer dramatically decrease the performance of viewers in the area.
Much improved prioritization of audio downloads.
Improved prioritization of playback priority - in particular, looped sounds should work much more effectively.

Camera/mouse-driven vehicle control - vehicle turns in direction of camera.
Camera can be either object-relative (look to the left and vehicle keeps turning left) or world-relative (look to the north, and vehicle turns to the north).

You can upload animations from Poser 4 or 5 by exporting .BVH files
Various settings can be changed for the animation, at upload time only.
New script call - LLGetAnimationList() returns a list of all active animations.
Animations can be triggered by scripts by name if and only if they sit in the object inventory.

Gestures have been changed significantly for the 1.4 release. They now reside in your inventory as items, and can be copied and traded.
Gestures can now be composed of multiple steps, which can be animations, sounds, chat, and pauses.

XML-RPC has been completed and integrated into the 1.4 release. See Preview guide and scripting documentation for more information.

Transmission of objects to you from the servers is much improved, with better allocation of bandwith by importance of the object.

Faster inventory downloads.
Separate library for common items. Inventory items that are shared by everyone are not stored in an Inventory Library.

Object position/rotation/scale always visible (which one you see depends on which tool is active).
Rotation now works at 1 degree increments, from 0 to 359 degrees.
New rotation snap tool allows you to quickly align object axes along world axes.
Streamlined all manipulator tools (only important information shown)

LSL state changes to the same state no longer trigger either state_exit or state_entry events.
Fixed a compiler problem where repeated compiles weren't cleaning out all temporary data.
Fixed texture typo in llSetPrimitiveParams.
Parenthesis weren't evaluating to the correct type.

Bandwidth settings are now a single slider, from 50 to 1000Kbps in 50 Kbps increments. The default is 300Kbps.
There is no longer an "Audio Download" indicator - there is now a separate graph in the debug panel for "Asset", which keeps track of how much bandwidth is being used to download audio files and animation files.
Paying someone via the "Find" directory now includes the user to be paid in the dialog.
Hovering the mouse over land with no scripts allowed shows "No Scripts" in the tooltip.
Delete key behavior changed. If focus is in a text editor and delete will actually delete something, then delete the text. Otherwise try to delete selected object in world.
Land selection highlight now correct when selecting land across a simulator boundary.
There is now a "Partner" field in your profile.
Officers can modify group parcel access even if the group isn't currently set as active.
Improved fast UI update mechanism.
"Recenter every click" option has been deprecated.
Teleport blocked message is more informative.
Fixed bugs that would occasionally result in incorrect updating of terrain at edges of simulators.
Added one new tree type.
There is now a nighttime brightness slider in the Preferences/Display panel.