Emerald Viewer 1.4.0.2439 Released – Review

Update 8/15/2010 – Be sure to read Emerald Viewer Scandal Erupts… Again

Update II: 2010-08-11More information was posted about 2439. It seems some security issue came up and they are fixing it. Some number of Emerald users are running into problems, inventory loss, av not rez’n, failure to login, viewer crashes… seems to be a small but significant percentage. There are apparently some problems on the Modular servers which are slowing the fix process. You can read it here: Re: Beta 2439

Word in world is that for now the 2439 version will not be blocked, so one can continue to use it. In a few days a new viewer version will be out. Then the 2439 version will be blocked.

The next release is to be based on the 1.5 version code base… sure… and that means? I’m not sure… yet.

Update: 2010-08-11 The blog post for the 2439 build of the viewer and links to it have disappeared. AleiaSerenity Sapphire of the Emerald Support Team posted: “there were some issues with the avatar texture feature on the pie menu  so the dev’s removed 2437 from the blog” …ok… Well… read through the bugs section of this post. I suspect the high number of inventory problems may have something to do with it too. The number of people re-downloading inventory has to be placing a load on LL servers.

Emerald Viewer 2439

Animation Browser (2439)

The Modular/Emerald team released its latest version late Saturday – 2439. This version appears to have lots of fixes and changes. So, you may find some Preference Settings have moved. It does retain my settings from the previous version. Yay

The change log at Modular seems to be lagging. So, it is hard for me to tell what is new and not.

For those less than thrilled with new SL 2.x interface, Emerald’s new version remains close to the 1.23 viewer interface. One really big plus in this regard is they have a Clear Cache button on the Edit -> Preferences – [Network] tab, something the SL 2.1 viewers lack, or I can’t find.

Updates are being added to the Bugs section. Latest 2010-08-09

One nice feature of Emerald Viewers, it’s been around for a while, is the ability to have the AV offset up half it’s height when crossing SIM boundaries. I hate falling through SIM’s. Having this feature turned on make life in SL a bit nicer. Edit -> Preferences [Emerald] [Page 1] [TP/Login] – I use -> to denote menu selection paths and [ ] to denote tab selections.

Emerald Viewer 2439

Avatar Textures (2439)

Pie Menu – there is a new choice in Emerald’s pie menu, AvTextures. For those new to Emerald they will notice two new items; AvTextures and S. Count. The S. Count is Script Count and tells one how many scripts a selected AV is running. It appears again in the MORE part of the pie if you click on an object/prim. The AvTexture choice brings up a panel with all the textures used on your AV. (See image) You can change clothes textures like; gloves, shirt, and etc. However, even with a skin I made and have full permissions on the panel won’t let me change it. Jessica Lyon told me the purpose of AvTexture is intended to be mostly debugging.

Settings Panel – Down in the lower right corner is a small up arrow that opens the Settings Panel. It has been around since late 2009. A little tool with all the most commonly used settings, Draw Distance, Bandwidth, Particles, Max Avatars, and Max Nodes (Max Nodes, limits maximum number of vertices to render per object… or something like that). Plus there is a drop down for selecting your Windlight settings.

Menu -> Emerald

Animation Explorer – I think this is new. I don’t remember it. An image is at the top of this article. You’ll find it in the Top Menu under Emerald. It appears again under the menu item World. This shows a list of animations running on your avatar. You can when it last ran. You can select the animations listed (by UUID) and watch it play in a preview window.

Sound Explorer – in the Top Menu under Emerald. I think this is new too. This tool gives you a list of sounds playing. When I’m working on my little shop a nearby shop sells flags. The flapping sound gets old after a bit. This lets me easily turn them off. For SIM owners it quickly shows who owns which sounds. There is a look-at-button that points the camera to the prim with the sound. Sounds can be blacklisted so you never have to hear them again. Handy.

Media Browser – I think this is supposed to work with Shared Media. It looks like an Internet Browser.

Asset Blacklist – This is new. The name suggests a mute type of feature. I think it is a blacklist item manager. If I blacklist a sound in the Sound Explorer, it shows up in this blacklist. There is an import/export of the list to your local computer (Save XML – Load XML). This makes an XML list of your blacklist items. That would let you move a complex list to new viewers and also back it up.

Avatar List – This has been around awhile now. There is a sticky in the Modular Forum that tells you what all the icons mean. This is radar, by the old definition of radar. Use Ctrl-A to pop it open.

Teleport History – This holds a history of your teleports and is persistent from session to session. Use Ctrl-H to pop it open.

Local Bit Map Browser – This lets you list textures/images on your local computer. You can build a list and edit it. It has a preview window. You can trigger an upload from it.

Area Search – This will search the local region by object name, owner name, group name, or the description text.

Menu -> ToolsRecompile Scripts in Selection now has the option to use Mon or LSL.

Menu -> World – Environment Settings has a Postprocessing feature.  This gives you access to Color Filter, Nightvision, Bloom controls, and Extras. I couldn’t get them to work. These may only be active if shadows are active… cause I can’t get them working.

MOAP – Shared Media – In 2439 this does not seem to be working.

Emerald Tab – PAGE 1

[Shields] This tab had the controls for protecting your AV’s clothes and other worn textures. Those controls are gone (or moved where I can’t find them). I understand ‘protected’ behavior is now the default and these are always turned on.

One can also change their tag color. Only ‘others’ can see the change.

[IM] I don’t see anything new here. For those new to Emerald there are a load of things to take advantage of. The best of these is Vertical IM tabs. I think this makes chat way easier to use.

[Chat] I don’t see anything new here… but Edit Auto Correct is a handy feature. It is off and empty by default. One can use this to create typing shortcuts. I can’t get it to work. It looks like it could be nice in role play areas where text chat abbreviations are frowned on.

Another feature that has been around for awhile is Auto complete OOC comments. In role play one uses text surrounded by (( and )) to indicate it is ‘real’ chat and not the role play character speaking.

[Misc] A new one you may not notice, but one that could be a big hit, Mute Gestures. The idea is it mutes other people’s gestures so you can avoid the chat spam.

Another handy feature that has been around is: Always rez objects under the land group if possible. This makes life easier when rezing stuff. I have no idea how many times I’ve rez’d something and the scripts wouldn’t work or it got returned because I forgot to switch to the right group before rez’ing.

[CmdLine] I think this is an awesome feature of Emerald. I use it a lot. It has been part of Emerald for a long time now. This feature allows one to type a chat command and make things happen. For instance typing dd 64 will change the draw distance to 64m. One can type rezplat and have a platform rez just below them. Handy when building at altitude.

[Avatar] and [Build] seem unchanged.

Emerald Tab – PAGE 2

[Inventory] seems unchanged. There are some nifty features here. One is the option about using LSLEditor for your scripting.

[Effects] is an interesting choice of label… this is where the Breast Bounce controls are. I don’t see anything new here.

[Advanced Graphics] is a busy panel. I don’t think anything has changed. This is the panel where one enables dynamic shadows. One does have to click Apply to get the effect to kick in. One also has to have graphics set to Ultra. The first and second time I tried the setting in 2439 I crashed. I gave up on shadows in Emerald, for now.

[Spell Check] this too seems unchanged.

Bug Reports

The Emerald Viewer team has set up a JIRA just for the viewer. It is called, Modular Systems JIRA

Report your Emerald Viewer bugs there.

Some people are experiencing crashes from having the map window open. Second time I opened the map I crashed.

Media seems to be broken. So TV’s and stuff are not working.

Some people cannot logon with the new viewer version. That seems to be caching issue. If you are not using separate caches for Emerald and the SL viewer… then this is a typical problem. See Second Life Lost Inventory and Missing Inventory Fix – Help for information on clearing caches.

Dragging note cards to the Emerald AO is not working.

Boobs are freezing… Oh! Catastrophe! To get them bouncing again disable and then enable them. Also change the settings to 90, 12, 90, 18, 17. (Jessica Lyon: you may have to try Advanced> character> character tests> test female)

Tangwystyl Gwynneville says to stop being a poofball (I like that better than gas ball) try: Menu Advanced (Ctrl-Alt-d) -> debug settings -> renderunloadedavatar and set to true.

Builders should know the DELETE key is not working as it should. It appears this bug came up in (2270) and is not yet fixed.

Away Time Outs – changed more than they are a bug. Go to  ” Advanced > Character > Character Tests….   Uncheck “Go Away/AFK When Idle”. Seems 600 seconds is now the max limit in Preferences. In Debug Settings there is afkTimeout setting that one can change and avoid turning it off completely. Kandi Luminos explains on the Modular forum that it is the AFK timer that logs one out. If it is not started, you don’t log out. If you set “Go Away/AFK When Idle” FALSE, it stops the timer from automatically starting, but manually setting AFK from a gesture or a menu will start the timer and you will be logged off.

Multiple Attachment Points – Clothes Layers – You may see problems if you turn this on and travel between 1.38 and 1.40 version servers. The roll out is currently in process. I think I remember correctly that it is scheduled to complete 7/28.

64-bit version – installs in the 32 bit folders. AFAIK it is a real 64-bit compile.

Update 2010-07-30 & 08–0

64 bit version – SLPlugin/WebKit has problems. No work-arounds yet. See Second Life WebKit Fail / Error – Problem Again – But there are Windows 64 bit installs that work. So, there is a way…

Scripts written from Emerald do not compile to workable code on OSGrid and OpenSim (OS) worlds. The dialects of these languages is slightly different. Several SL LSL commands use different commands and syntax in OS LSL. If someone knows of a good converter, let me know.

Growl (Mac or Windows) is recommended for Emerald users and other SL residents. However, it seems to make problems for some on Win7-64. It works fine for others.

Using top Menu -> Edit -> Pref -> [Emerald] [Shields Tab] uncheck Broadcast camera focus point hides the crosshairs that show others where you are looking, if they have LOOK turned on. The problem with disabling it on your viewer is other residents cannot see your avatar head turn in the direction you are looking. Probably a good thing, if you are a spy or something.

Side By Side Fix – Some who have not run Emerald or upgraded for some time find installing the 2439 version causes a Side-by-side error notice. If you hit that, see: Application Has Failed page. A similar error causes a configuration error notice. The Side-By-Side fix is for that too.

Install Problems – Others have a problem after a Windows complete system reinstall. If that is your case, check that you have all the Windows Updates. Make double sure you have C++ or .NET runtime installed. See Detect .NET Install There is confusion about whether and which version of C++ runtime it has to be. I suggest starting with .NET and if that fails add the C++. The versions of both are supposed to be backward compatible. Also try the Side-by-Side fix.

Many are having teleport problems. This is often caused by a script in an attachment. Remove all your attachments and try again. Be sure to check grid status and remember any single region can be down at any time.

Poof Ball Avatar – Here is a list of the known solutions: Everyone sees me as the loading plasma cloudpoofball.

Inventory Loss – this is a big issue right now, 2010-08. See Second Life Lost Inventory and Missing Inventory Fix – Help for information on clearing caches and other possible fixes.

11 thoughts on “Emerald Viewer 1.4.0.2439 Released – Review

  1. I think you should add to your post that Modular System has released the first 64 bit version of Emerald.

    According to a comment posted on their blog, this version is based on their 32 bit code but compiled as a 64 bit application in order to bypass the 4GB memory limit of 32 bit systems.

    The 64 bit version seems to work well on my computer so far. I haven’t stressed test this version yet but I have been noticing better performance already.

  2. I’ve just tried logging on with this version directly to OSgrid. It has a lot more grid options built in to its log-in screen. Nice!

    All the textures seem to have downloaded too — I had problems in this area with an earlier version of Emerald.

    • I have not tried the latest Emerald and Kirsten on OSGrid. With the previous versions I was getting ‘Can’t teleport because of inconsistent attachment state’ or something like that. A relog and I could tp, but I would get some weird attachments showing up. May be later today. Thanks letting us know.

  3. Why not Emerald 2439 don´t run im my pc ? Windows 7 W32, E8400, 4GB ram, 9600Gt512 mb. I load 1636 so easy and sl viewer 2.0
    In beta version, since 2270 version don´t load in my pc. Any sugestions ?? Thx for anything.

  4. Pingback: Emerald Viewer 2439 Update « Nalates' Things & Stuff Blog

  5. I do notice a bug that no one here has reported, there are times when my torso, or legs vanish at random times

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