Second Life – Machinima Settings

Strawberry Singh has released a tutorial for those making machinimas using the Firestorm Viewer. You’ll find it here: Second Life Vlogging & Machinima Viewer Tips. It is, of course, a video but. It is backed up with a text version too, good for quick reference. Click the image to jump to YouTube.

Machinima Tips – Click for YouTube

I use both the Firestorm and Linden viewers for capturing video. I do think Firestorm is a better choice for most video capture scenarios. I used the Linden viewer as I better knew how to use its voice controls. As Learn how better to control sound I am moving to Firestorm. But, I was curious how many of the Firestorm features are in the Linden viewers.

As I worked through Singh’s list I found the Linden viewer has pretty much the same controls. But, they are way easier to get to and to use with Firestorm. If this were a ‘features’ contest, I would say Firestorm wins on presentation.

My last comparison between Firestorm and Linden viewers for machinima was almost three years ago, September 2014 – Second Life Viewer Tips + Firestorm.

I am going to assume you read Strawberry’s article or watched her video. I won’t explain what these things are for so much as how to enable/disable them in the Linden viewer.

Hide User Interface – This feature works in the Linden viewer just as it does in Firestorm: CTRL+ALT+F1. When you are using OBS or another video capture utility you can feel you got trapped or think the viewer stopped working. If the viewer loses focus, as it does when you use the Tool Tray controls for OBS, the viewer seems to stop responding to key presses. Just click in the viewer and it will become responsive.

I use this control often. It is quick and easy. However, if you need to use any viewer controls, you are out of luck. You can’t. as Singh points out.

Hide your HUDs – Pressing ALT+SHIFT+H hides HUD’s. It works in the Linden viewer. This and the one above are the two I most use.

Hide Money and Stuff – Firestorm gives you lots of right-click control over what is shown in the top menu. The Linden viewer not so much. In 2010 there was a discussion in the SL forum about hiding the L$ balance in the viewer. Seems one has to go in and edit the panel_status_bar.xml file to remove it. So, basically, there is no way to turn it on/off.

When right-clicking the top menu bar you only have a choice of Show Navigation & Favorites Bar or Show Mini-Location Bar. Switching to the mini bar hides your LM favorites.

There is an alternative with OBS and several other recording apps. When OBS is started it presents a view showing what will be captured inside a red border. That border is adjustable. Adjust that to not show the top menu and effectively hide the L$ balance.

I have found it easier to hide things using the Mosaic effect in Premiere. But, adjusting the window is an alternative.

Complexity Notifications – The Linden viewer has 8 debug settings for Avatar Complexity. Five of those are obsolete and no longer used. :/ The only one I can find that effects on screen pops is ShowMyComplexityChanges. This is the same setting found in the Firestorm viewer.

The setting controls how ‘long’ those notices stay on screen. The default is 10 seconds. Setting the value to 0 disables the notices. The Lindens did not make disabling this easy. It’s a philosophy thing.

Strawberry points out that in Firestorm you can press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S to open the Debug Settings. That doesn’t work in the Linden viewer. You pan the camera down… Ctrl-Alt-Shift-W pans up. I did find those shortcuts in the wiki… A & D pan left and right, but you have to hold the A & D for a bit before the pan starts.

However, in Preferences->Notifications there is a notification control that relates to Complexity notifications, Warn me about my avatar complexity changes. Another is Warn me if my avatar complexity is too high.

I’m not sure about that last one. I think this is the one that tells you some users’ viewers will not render you because you are more complex than their setting. If you are shooting video you’ll likely want this off as it can be triggered to pop up by what others do. Being that if someone with ACI set at 50k comes into the region and your avatar has an ACI of 75k, you’ll get the popup that not all avatars can see you.

Turn off Names Tags  – This is the same in both viewers. Preferences (CTRL+P shortcut)->General.

There are those ‘tool tip’ type name-things that pop up when you pause a cursor over something. There are 6 settings in Debug Settings. The one you will probably grab is ToolTipDelay. This is the User Interface tool tips, appearing when you hover over a viewer control. Not what you want.

You want ObjectInspectorTooltipDelay. This will turn off the tool tips for OBJECTS, not avatars. For avatars, you need to change the setting AvatarInspectorTooltipDelay.

Unfortunately, there are no Preference settings for these. So, Firestorm wins on this one.

Disable Chat & Group Chat – In the Linden viewer, this has changed since I wrote about it 2014. Go into Preferences->Notifications and you’ll see the former choices are gone. Instead, go into Preferences->Chat. All the settings are there plus some new ones.

For machinima, you probably want to set those to No Action.

Distracting Sounds – Here Firestorm makes it way easier. In the Linden viewer, go up into the upper right corner and hover over the Speaker icon. Or in Preferences->Sounds & Media. Some of the same settings are in both places but, there are more in Preferences.

The only way I know to turn off the Voice Visualizer in a Linden viewer, dot above the head, is to turn voice off.

Another page… link below.

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