We’ve been working hard on some major changes to Second Life’s Viewer and back-end infrastructure to improve the Second Life experience for all users. Today, we’re pleased to share an update on Project Shining – an initiative that will make avatars load and rez more quickly and reliably.

We’ve tested changing of outfits, avatar swapping, and initial avatar loading into worlds, and our tests showed performance gains across the board. Bottom line, Second Life users will experience less time in “clouded” or untextured avatar states and/or completely failed bakes that require relogs. Check out this video for more about the project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jwglL3VXI80

Project Sunshine is rolling out in three steps:

1) A required Viewer update, out now! The official Second Life Viewer (version 3.5.1 and later) includes important updates you’ll need to enjoy the benefits of Project Sunshine, so update today if you haven’t yet.  Actively updated Third Party Viewers also already have Sunshine-enabled versions available.

2) A server-side update, rolling out soon. It’s at this point that you’ll begin to notice significant improvements in avatar and object load times and reliability. But if you haven’t updated your Viewer, avatars won’t look right to you when we roll out the server update, so seriously, update now!

3) A second Viewer update, released after the server-side improvements are rolled out. As long as you have the Viewer 3.5.1 or later (available now), avatars won’t look wrong for you, but this second Viewer update will be needed to get the full benefits of Project Sunshine.

Get on your way to a better, faster, and more reliable Second Life experience and update to the latest Viewer today!