This is a Second Life photographer’s dream viewer. I don’t use it for everyday use. But it is fast and has great visual features. As KirstenLee is changing things faster than most other viewer makers so this may be the least stable of the alternate Second Life® viewers. Others claim it is the most stable and needs the least CPU power. That just has not been my experience. Still, if you want that great shot of an area or model looking so sexy, this is your viewer.
Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote about viewers in June and felt the S-17 (198) viewer was simply great. See Pushing the Limits.
I did try it in a combat sim. Server lag, automatic weapons fire and all… it did pretty good. No locks ups and the FPS stayed over 10, which is great for a combat sim.
Here is a cool video of the 3D mesh import and dynamic shadows coming to Second Life. If you click to watch on YouTube, you can click the HD button and see detail and read the menus. I suggest that and stop the video to check out what is in them.
Video Gone… 🙁
It is interesting to see ‘Upload Model’ in a menu. As they advance through the video they turn on dynamic shadows. If you have used Kirstenlee’s S-18 viewer and played with dynamic shadows that part will be familiar.
Use of ‘Deferred Rendering’ for shadows is an older technique that Maya has used for years. It has been improved over time and will likely give the Second Life Viewer the ability to render hundreds of lights instead of the 6 to 10 it handles now, without a significant performance hit.
Also, notice the shadows and lighting. Under the arches there is a light reflection. This is diffuse light or indirect lighting. Usually only done when ray tracing is available. So, this will be a big step up for SL.
There is a small conversation in the comments at NWN. There is a large conversation going on in the XStreetSL Forum. See: New Guidelines Forum Thread There is also another thread of conversations here: Chat About XStreet SL Listing Guidelines In the Chat there are several clarifications on subjects beyond just branding issues. Also, Pink Linden states there is a group of Lindens working on the same issues in-world. So, we will likely see this rule change coming into the SL world.
For those doing business in Second Life the Currency Exchange is a tool that can improve their profit margin when they are taking L$ out of world to RL currencies. One just has to understand how it works, which is what this Second Life Currency Exchange Tutorial is about.
If you are a resident that just needs a few Linden dollars on occasional bases to purchase something, you can still gain from understanding how the Currency Exchange works and knowing what it is and how to use it. You won’t need some of the more esoteric information I’ll provide. Knowing the basics will save you a few L$.
The Exchange
XStreetSL Currency Exchange
XStreetSL has a Currency Exchange, which is now owned by Linden Lab. This is a place where you can easily buy and sell L$ as well as other stuff. It is a fun place to shop also and has loads of free stuff. There is no StreetSL fee for moving funds between SL and PayPal. Using PayPal is the only way to take cash out of XStreetSL. URL: https://www.xstreetsl.com/
A new Beta version 1.2 is of the Imprudence viewer is out. New World Notes has a good review of Beta version.
Original Imprudence Review
I have been hearing about this viewer. I decided to try it out in my ongoing quest for the best Second Life viewer. While looking for information I came across Gwyneth Llewelyn’s review of Imprudence (11m/25d/09y). It is an interesting read and covers much of the philosophy of the Imprudence developers, of which the sort summary is, they are developing a viewer for Second Life Power Users. Ok… sounds cool.
The Imprudence Viewer release notes tell one what is new and what is still a ‘known’ problem. I’ll give you the short version here.
Viewers are changing rapidly and there is lots of new information and mis-information. For Combat RPG’s some of the information is critical. (Continued from GreenLife Emerald Viewer Review)
Update 12/3/09: This viewer updates rapidly. I have made several posts here about the different features being added to Greenlife Emerald viewer and provided reviews. There is a trail of links you can read through to read them in order. Or you can click on the Archive page and select the Emerald Viewer Reviews to see all the posts that relate.
Most of the new viewers have a thing some call Radar and in Emerald it is labeled Avatar List (Ctrl-Shift-a or via menu Emerald -> Avatar List). In some other places in Emerald it is referred to as radar. In Emerald it is a handy floater listing all the nearby avatars and some handy information. See the image.
Once upon a time the mini-map was called radar, until Linen Lab renamed it for a better new player experience. But that is not the radar usually meant in comabt SIM’s.
Radar in Second Life previously was a script in a prim or HUD that used a SCAN feature in Second Life’s LSL scripting language. SCAN’s are notorious for creating lag. It’s just the way it works in SL. Good programmers avoid it as much as possible. Combat SIM operators simply ban prim/hud based radars or any high lag producers within their games. There are several reasons for the radar ban with lag being the biggest one. Since prim/HUD based radars were the only ones in existence, SIM operators never bothered to specify which types radars were banned or why, they just simply said radar is banned.
