34:45 – Exchangeable settings – some machinima folks want to get an easy way to change sun position and better Windlight control panel. In that vein the Exodus Team is looking at making settings that people can exchange. They have the beginnings of it now. It will grow to the point that one can have all the changeable settings in SL in a set. Sort of like the Windlight settings people were exchanging. This will allow people to make quick shifts between configurations.

If one plays in combat, they often have a need to tune the viewer for combat/performance. If they want to go shopping or clubbing they need to retune the configuration for render quality. This new feature would make that very easy.

36:30 – Discussion on Windlight. One of the problems that holds use of Windlight back is the need to open a panel, adjust and then save or lose the settings once the panel is closed. Many of us would like to be able to change on the fly and have the changes stick without having to create new preset.

37:00 – Discussion by the Exodus team on viewer 1.x impacts on the SIM verse viewer 3.x. The older protocols used by the 1.x viewers that have not been upgraded… which mostly means the Linden viewers, through load on the region server. The new viewers using the new protocols bypass the region servers for much of the work and requests go directly to utility servers.

Don’t confuse the UI appearance with the protocol. One can have a V1 style UI and be running V3 protocols. The Cool VL Viewer is a good example. However, the Linden 1.23 has not been upgraded with the new protocols and will not be, which is why it is no longer available for download.

Firestorm and Phoenix give the user the choice to use the new or legacy protocols. The team and Gianna say people are noticing when Firestorm and Phoenix users come into a region it starts to lag. I suspect as this becomes known more Firestorm and Phoenix used will use the new protocols, but one never knows. Often the fix for viewer problems is to turn off the new protocols. That advice seems to be getting ingrained. However, things are changing and at some point the old protocols will be less stable than the new ones. Things change quickly.

Freedom is about choice. So, one has the philosophical quandary of deciding if they and their experiences are more important than another’s freedom. You can decide if the older viewers should be banned.

41:00 – Safety Issues with Exodus Viewer. The team tries to be as open as possible. They have gone to third party sites to have them test the Exodus web site and the Exodus viewer are safe.

43:00 – Combat aspects of Exodus Viewer.

46:00 – Mesh Deformer discussion. At the time of the interview few TPV’s had incorporated the feature. Now most of the TPV’s and the Linden Deformer Project Viewer have the feature.

49:00 – Discussion on visual settings. Mac users will be happy to know that many of the visual features were developed on a Mac. So, the team knows they work really well on the Mac. However, Drax bought a PC for machinima because the Mac does give the frame rates or handle shadows well. Apple has a problem with 3D render. Apple is the artists choice for art and 2D work and even video editing.

52:00 – Exodus has rendering features that no other viewer has. Read mine and Inara’s reviews of the Exodus Viewer to get an idea what it has. As the panel described them, the options are (beeeeeeeep) fat.

Team also endeavors to give proper attribution for all the features in the Exodus viewer. While they like to create the viewer’s features many, like RLV, are brought into Exodus. Check the web site for attributions.

54:00 – Stats & Performance. I use the Viewer Stats (Ctrl-Shift-1) panel a lot. I also use the Fast Timers Display (Ctrl-Shift-9). Unless one opens the Fast Timers then the Viewer Stats, one my not notice how much the Viewer Stats is slowing the viewer. It’s not much, at least not on my computer. But, they have a quick stats panel that skips checking a load of stuff you are not interested in unless you are troubleshooting. It places less load on the viewer than the Viewer Statistics panel.

You will find the new stats thingy in Help->Minimal Statistics. The panel reads out; Time on, FPS, bandwidth, ping, server FPS, and Time Dilation. These are generally the only things I care about.

55:00 – Discussion on the viewer mode: Torley Vision… everything looks like watermelons.

55:45 – What coming? No promises… they say. Tone mapping is in the viewer now. In the next release they expect to add Reinhart and Linear Tone Mapping. These features change the look of the render.

Also they plan to add color grading. I’m not sure what they mean. To me it sounds like filter layers in Photoshop.

57:30 – Rant on why isn’t Linden Lab doing these things. One of the team comments that the Lab is throwing resources at fixing the Display Name/Single user name issue right now. If you follow my blog you may wonder about that idea. I suppose it could be a project for one of the silent teams.

58:30 – There is a donate button on the download page near the bottom. You can also make donation in world via the avatar ExodusViewer Resident. I only found ExodusViewer.com in people search. Whether that is me or SL that borking the search I don’t know.

59:15 – How does one submit features requests, bug reports, etc.? The team asks that you use the Exodus Forum. There forum appears to be more of a Google groups thing than the typical forum I am used to.

1:00:00 – New combat feature, which they don’t have a name for yet.For now they refer to it as inventory key mapping.  It will allow one to map inventory items to keys. The would allow one to map a pistol to #1, shotgun to #2, and rocket launcher to #3. While in combat one could press #1 to draw the pistol. When #2 is pressed the pistol will detach and the shot gun will attach and the same for #3 and the rocket launcher.

The feature could also be used to detach things. So, a furry could sit down and the tail would detach to avoid sticking through a chair. Drax immediately saw applications for this in machinima productions.

1:03:00 – Discussion thanking Qarl for the creation of sculpted penises and vulva. Lots of beeping here. Enough so one can almost dance to it.

1:04:45 – 1:06:50 – Why isn’t Exodus Viewer on the Third Party Viewer Directory? They provide a explanation of why they have declined to be included in the directory. My take is that it puts the Exodus Viewer at risk, a risk the team feels is too great to take. If the team ever decides to NOT comply with some feature requirement the Lan comes up with, they could be removed from the list. Removal from the list is seen by the SL community in general as a really bad thing. The team would prefer to never be on the list than risk ever being removed from it.

One can debate the merit and the team’s perception of that risk. However, they are taking the risk, creating the code, and doing the work on their time and dime. They are free to do that.

I will point out they have done more than most of the TPV’s I follow to assure users of the safety of the Exodus Viewer and web site. If one is counting on being in the directory as a measure of safety then they are counting on nothing. The Lab does not verify or checkout the viewers for security. They rely on the viewer’s developer to say the viewer is safe. If there are complaints, then the viewer is removed, which is where the stigma comes from. I doubt there is any real evaluation done at that time either, but may be.

1:07:30 – Video tutorials for the Exodus Viewer are coming.

1:09:00 – Qarl spoke about his recent video update on Mesh Deformer. He reiterates the points in his video.  So, see: Status Update Mesh Deformer.

1:10:00 – Simplified Inventory Project. The MetaReality panel is just starting to try it out. You can lern more about it here: Second Life’s Simplified Inventory Project.

1:?? Chaos…

Summary

The Exodus Viewer and its development come across very well.  We haven’t seen a new release since early December. But, the viewer is liked by many and is showing over 14,000 downloads. Take a look at my Exodus Viewer Reviews.

The viewer is well worth a try. Use it for a couple of days and you will probably be hooked.