Imprudence Experimental Viewer 2010-11-13

Imprudence Viewer

Imprudence Viewer

The Imprudence team has a new Experimental Viewer version out, 11/13. They have announced this version has many significant changes. I’ll touch on those I think significant. You can get all the details here: Imprudence Experimental Release: 2010.11.13

Installing

I suggest you manually clear the cache after installing and before you attempt to run the viewer. Failing to manually clear the cache can drive the viewer to 100% CPU and Not Responding.

On Windows you MUST have QuickTime installed. 

Problems

I get two windows for the viewer, like running Blender.

Be prepared for some camera problems. The Alt-Left-click for cam’ing around your avatar has problems. My camera jumps to bizarre places if I click on an avatar attachment. Trying to edit attachments is a hassle.

If you ‘mouse-steer’ you will find the old problem of clicking on an avatar attachment NOT allowing you to steer is back. This seems intermittent…

Changes

One change is the viewer settings file is now a file unique to the Imprudence Viewer. I think this is a big step forward in viewer compatibility. Just as I recommend a separate cache for all viewers because of problems in how different viewers use the cache, settings/configuration is another area where problems breed.

If you have never looked in the viewers Debug Settings, you have no idea how many settings influence the viewer. If different developers use similar settings names for different purposes, there will be incompatibilities. Several viewers have ‘settings’ files in multiple places. Unfortunately several seem to share the settings files one finds in C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings and other SL locations. Look in the Roaming folder for a folder with your viewer name. If it is not there, there is a chance it is sharing settings with the SL viewer.

If you use various SL viewers, such as the Project Viewers, you can look in the viewer’s Desktop Icon properties and see that even SL uses separate settings files (–settings some_file_name). So, a separate settings/configuration file for Imprudence is a smart feature.

Object Search

This is way handy for estate managers and builders. I have a load of scripted yard lights I have been working with and experimenting with different sun detector scripts. With the estate debug and object search (menu Advanced -> Area Object Search or Alt-A) I can find the poorly performing scripts much more easily.

In the list of objects, right-click to get a selection menu with Teleport, Cam To, and Edit.

Prim Align

I think this is the best feature added in some time. You find it in the Build/Edit dialog. This version uses Ctrl-A to turn alignment on and off while editing a prim.

Media

The media system has been fixed… somewhat. Streaming Sound is still a problem. The system has been revamped and is now modular. It no longer crashes the viewer.

HTTP Get Texture

This is still shown as an experimental feature. Linden Lab still seems to be having some problems with this feature. So, I suppose this is not surprising.

WebKit

This has been a pain for some time. There is a special install one needs to do, if you do not already have Flash installed. The Install does not work when one uses Google Chrome. 🙁

Mesh

No mesh rendering yet.

Aurora Sim Support

Support for the Aurora simulators has been added. When you are on an Aurora Sim you will have additional features in the viewer.

Summary

Lots of bug fixes and good performance. My Duel Core2 and nVidia 8800 GTS average around 50 FPS on basic High settings.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *