Black Dragon Viewer Updated Week 22

Inara is covering the update of the Black Dragon Viewer for Second Life™, version 2.4.2.5. See: Black Dragon 2.4.2.5: snapshot floater and cinematic camera.

The effect of the new Cinematic/Head Tracking Camera is shown in the video. I would have to play with the camera to see if I like it and think it useable, which has nothing to do with whether it is or isn’t. The effect in the video is pretty neat.

I may have to try it to see how it works with the SpaceNavigator, which uses flycam mode when controlling the camera..

NiranV is working on the viewer’s snapshot panel. NiranV designed the panel that appears in the SL Viewer distributed by the Lab. In NiranV’s viewer the panel is apparently evolving. That is S.O.P. for NiranV, which is the reason I like the Black Dragon Viewer but don’t use it. I like the innovation. I hate continually having to figure out how things work or what controls have moved to where with each update.

It isn’t as bad as I may make it sound. I think everyone that takes pictures or makes machinima in SL should try the viewer.

5 thoughts on “Black Dragon Viewer Updated Week 22

  1. Thought of the day:

    Aren’t all Viewers evolving? (given they are still updated)
    Some just more rapidly but in smaller scale and some slower in bigger scale.

    Extra thought of the day:

    Wasn’t the last big change the preferences being sorted? That’s quite a while back and since then not much has happened on the UI front, \continually\ having to figure out how things work and where controls have moved (given i’m right guessing you are referring to options) is a bit exaggerated i think. The times in which i have iterated through 4 totally upside down layouts are long gone, my focus has settled more on subtle changes, alignments and cleanup rather than mass moving options, i try to keep the already given layout if it makes sense.

    I also try to explain reasons for changing things around and where they moved (if they did) in each update’s post and lately (2015) actually \moved\ controls have been very few if not almost non at all.

    If you look closely at the changes you will notice that not even the oh-so big changes i did previously in Nirans Viewer were all that big, they always kept a general layout that was always present. The topbar and inventory, 2 of the most used parts of the UI are good examples for that. The topbar is nothing else than an upside down version of the old topbar when i started Nirans Viewer and the Inventory is almost still the exact same thing it always was (if you don’t count the slight layout changes that had to be introduced for inventory marketplace). Menu’s you are using every day, starting from the right click menu to the main menu have seen almost no changes over the past years. Actually, i just took a time travel back to 2011 and look what i found:

    I sadly stopped reading your blog actively quite some time ago, pretty much since you throttled down in-depth looks into my Viewer and settled on a bit too generalized assumptions and past experience that should no longer be true.

    • You are right. I stopped using your viewers sometime ago because of the rapidly evolving UI. I like that you are evolving the viewer. I just wasn’t going to take the time to learn and keep up on the UI.

      In 2011 it was NiranV. Black Dragon I first saw in 2013. I was looking for where I stopped using Black Dragon. I didn’t find it. So, it could have been as long ago as 2013. I think it was more recently.

      In any event, you are right. It is unfair to continue to think the UI is still rapidly changing without actually looking to see if that is true. So, I’ve downloaded and installed a new copy of Black Dragon. I suspect your perception of what is changing or is a change and my perception will be different. It will take some time for me to decide.

      Your Black Dragon, Henri’s Cool VL Viewer, and Marine’s RLV all deserve more coverage than I give them. It is unfair and that is life.

      I do appreciate your effort and talent. The Snapshot panel is a significant improvement to viewers. Thanks for that and the Black Dragon.

  2. Trash the previous comment, the html tag broke somehow. Why doesn’t this blog have a preview option?

    Thought of the day:

    Aren’t all Viewers evolving? (given they are still updated)
    Some just more rapidly but in smaller scale and some slower in bigger scale.

    Extra thought of the day:

    Wasn’t the last big change the preferences being sorted? That’s quite a while back and since then not much has happened on the UI front, \continually\ having to figure out how things work and where controls have moved (given i’m right guessing you are referring to options) is a bit exaggerated i think. The times in which i have iterated through 4 totally upside down layouts are long gone, my focus has settled more on subtle changes, alignments and cleanup rather than mass moving options, i try to keep the already given layout if it makes sense.

    I also try to explain reasons for changing things around and where they moved (if they did) in each update’s post and lately (2015) actually \moved\ controls have been very few if not almost non at all.

    If you look closely at the changes you will notice that not even the oh-so big changes i did previously in Nirans Viewer were all that big, they always kept a general layout that was always present. The topbar and inventory, 2 of the most used parts of the UI are good examples for that. The topbar is nothing else than an upside down version of the old topbar when i started Nirans Viewer and the Inventory is almost still the exact same thing it always was (if you don’t count the slight layout changes that had to be introduced for inventory marketplace). Menu’s you are using every day, starting from the right click menu to the main menu have seen almost no changes over the past years. Actually, i just took a time travel back to 2011 and look what i found:

    I sadly stopped reading your blog actively quite some time ago, pretty much since you throttled down in-depth looks into my Viewer and settled on a bit too generalized assumptions and past experience that should no longer be true.

  3. Black Dragon dates back all the way to May 2013 where it was nothing more than a default LL Viewer, many things had to be altered and changed to bring them back to a state i consider the absolute minimum to form a new Viewer, it took about 4-6 months before the major changes to the UI slowly throttled down, this is a totally normal thing to happen, something i would expect of every Viewer in the first months if they want to implement an UI they have basically done already unless they did all that in secret already.

    As shown in this past post the UI has gone through several skins, which were usually the biggest changes in the UI, the post nicely shows that the general UI hasn’t changed all that much over the years, it always had this very general layout, even the artistic skin which made it look like you are in for a crazy new UI turned out to be just a slightly altered main UI, the menu was still there, absolutely untouched, the top toolbar was there, the status bar part was still there, the only thing that wasn’t obvious right away was the missing navigation bar which had to be shown by clicking the empty space at top or the navigationbar button. SL’s biggest problem is its UI, it’s certain amount and sort of features aswell as general UI layout gives SL sort of a box in which the UI is set it, differences might look huge but they are all somewhat the same because the UI itself has this certain look and feel to it and enforces it everywhere, my UI experiments in the past where tries to break out of this box and i usually ended up taking only the best from it and moving on, using the experience gained for future UI changes. My UI changes have become a lot more subtle over the past yet they seem to cause people’s heads to pop occasionally as they try to figure out the \totally new\ design which is the same layout used for years just with widgets aligned and grouped together, that’s exactly what i want, minimum amount of changes having maximum effect. The UI is a powerful tool and i use it to show users a different way to experience SL, different but somehow very similar. The recently overhauled build floater and snapshot floaters are good a example for this, they feel so vastly different if you look at them, they work pretty much exactly as they did before though. It’s magic. My magic, the way how i try to add personality to my work.

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