Second Life Beta Viewer 2.2.0

Project Snowstorm Team Members

Tofu and Aimee Linden in the UK are leaving the last day of the month. This is part of the previous layoff that was announced. Still it is sad to see people that have done such good work leaving. But, the UK office is closing… closed.

The team is now made up of Esbee, Oz, Merov, and 3 contract engineers. Plus there are various open source contributors.

Second Life Viewer Progress

SL Viewer Beta 2.2 is out. The Release Notes are here: Release Notes/Second Life Beta Viewer/2.2.0. The thing with release notes is they are really boring. I’ve added tips on how to find and use the new features to make this worth reading.

The key JIRA fixes are:

  • Automatic language translation – Added language translation option on the Preferences Chat controls.
  • Fixed Prim Media on HUDs – They had no Audio or Interactivity
  • Add option to take off wearables via “Wearing” Tab – In 2.1 if you went into the Side Bar Clothes Panel and then select Wearing, your only option for an item was to Edit. Now you have a REMOVE option for the items you are wearing.
  • Fixed glow effect showing through solid parts of alpha textures – this has been a big problem with HUD’s. Now an opaque HUD will be opaque.
  • Add option to align textures across planar-mapped parallel faces (Yay!) The way it works: When the checkbox found on the Texture tab is ticked and several faces are selected, textures on all faces will be aligned to the last selected face. This affects u/v scale, offset, and rotation. All faces must be in the same plan. Sometimes fails on cut faces. Report failures, they help figuring out which cases fail. You should be able to change the control texture and see other surfaces update, if I understand. I’ll have to try it.

Bug Fixes:

  • Memory Leaks
  • Crash on start (Note: this does not mean all causes were fixed.)
  • Fixed Intel 965 chipsset bug
  • Fixed crash from turning on Light and Shadows
  • Fixed performance problems with texture-related network traffic from viewer 2.x and 1.23
  • Fixed a crash happening in the inventory load process.
  • Fixed a crash in getting avatar attachment point (Is this why we are going all particle ball?)
  • Fixed 8 other crash problems (listed in release notes but really boring)
  • Fixed slow loading in viewer web browser.
  • Figured out why UDP (old style) texture loads slower in new SLV2 than 1.23

Enhancements – like new stuff…

  • Turn off swirling lights for scripted objects – Menu Advanced -> Show Debug Settings
    -> Type “EffectScriptChatParticles”
    . This is mostly for machinima, where swirl makes life really difficult.
  • Allow panning of the mini-map
  • Hovering over a dot on the minimap displays the user’s name and now provides the option to view their profile.
  • Add ability to undock tabs from the Viewer sidebar
  • Added ability to double-click on the land in-world and teleport – The on/off switch is in Debug Sittings but I don’t know the setting name. The control will eventually be moved to a Preferences panel.
  • Add ability to change Menu Bar Background Color – It’s for skin builders.
  • Fixed not being able to add negative signs to TWIST in Edit Mode.
  • Add a menu to allow one to select ADD or REPLACE when adding attachments – Multi-Attachments thing
  • Friends Cards get status update only when panel is opened. – This eliminates a lag producer at start up. Also avoids updates when info not being used.
  • Remove lag from appearance rebakes being uploaded while appearance editing. Now only uploads on edit close.
  • Added from viewer 1.23 to SLV2 the ability to TP multiple friends.
  • Improved Friends Status Updates – Like Calling Cards, will only update when being used.
  • Added a confirmation dialog when removing items from ‘My Landmarks’ and ‘My Inventory’
  • Added more choices to ADD/REMOVE clothing. – It makes multi-wear and multi-attachments easier to work with.
  • Added Take Off and Detach to gear menu on Wearing tab.
  • Add backwards compatibility for multi-attachments. – Here is where we are probably getting some of our avatar render problems. LL is assuming users will not be exposed to pre 1.42 version server software. I guess they have yet to hear about OpenSim. The user side fix is to assume one cannot use a viewer on multiple grids. One should probably have a copy of the viewer for each grid and a separate cache for viewer. Sheesh!
  • Dockable and detachable windows – I’m not sure how far they have actually gotten with the implementation. Panels are detachable and dockable. The idea is to be able to detach and drag panels outside the main viewer window. That last part is not yet possible. It is a frequent request from those using two monitors.
  • Added option to sit down, right where one is standing. – Right-click avatar.
  • Added avatar hover Info button to minimap. – Hover over a minimap dot and you should get name, etc., and an info button to allow you to open the profile.
  • Added ability to double-click on the land one can see in-world and teleport there – Related settings are currently in: Develop>UI>Double-Click Autopilot and Develop>UI>Double-Click Teleport.
  • Changed permissions to ‘See my online status’, ‘See me on the map’, or ‘Edit, delete or take my objects’ – These were hidden away in the individual’s Profile on the Security and Privacy tab. Added the ability back into the friends list.
  • Fixed scroll bar resetting to near the top of inventory while searching – For those will large inventory this was a real pain. One could not scroll through found items until search completed.
  • Fix scroll problem in Edit Outfit window. Add/Replace moved the list to the bottom.
  • Improve alpha mask render speed.
  • Bunch of other nice things (200+) that improve speed and fix numerous bugs.

Anti-Aliasing is still broken.

Other Tips

  • Buttons on the bottom menu rail are selectable. Right-click the bar and select. Unfortunately, I can’t turn of the Speak button.
  • Interesting destinations come up in search now.
  • Drag sidebar tabs to detach the panels.

I do get intermittent micro-freezes. The FPS is 10 to 15. This is a beta viewer and not really for full time use.

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