Category Archives: Cool VL

Cool VL Viewer 1.26.2 (17) Released

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There are not many changes in the last two versions. But, the experimental version 1.26.3 has an important change for me, which is the addition of Qarl’s Mesh Defomer 0.2. Henri has done something a bit different in his implementation. In his words from the forum:

Second version of Qarl’s mesh deformer implemented (with a new “Force Mesh Deformer” advanced settings in Advanced -> rendering, to force the same behavior as in the first version, i.e. to apply deformers even to meshes which were not designed for them): the new default/normal behavior of the code is to apply deformers only to meshes which were flagged as deformer-compatible at upload time (with a new “Deform to avatar shape” option added to the “Upload Options” tab of the “Upload Model” preview floater).

This should give us the ability to see how the 0.1 and 0.2 versions of the Deformer differ.

Download

I found the download horribly slow. It basically ran at 150kbps taking 30 minutes to download. My connection will handle 31mbps according to SpeedTest.net. Other downloads were running well, so who knows…

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Cool VL 1.26.3 Release Review

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There is a new version of the Cool Viewer out. I haven’t been keeping up with it because it uses the older V1 User Interface. But, I wanted to check it out. I’ve learned a few things that should be included in any review of Cool VL Viewer and may be about any V1 viewer. I’ve covered several points that affect all users regardless of viewer used, so you may want to skim this even if you are not interested in Cool VL. But, you are sure to learn some surprising things about Cool.

Get V1, V2, and V3 Right

In Second Life we have our own jargon when talking about SL. For instance the whole virtual world is mesh. Press Ctrl-Shift-R to see it. But, we call only some things mesh. We mean the new things we can make with ‘mesh’ models made in Blender and 3DS Max or Maya.

Cool VL Viewer 1.26.3 - Me Wearing Mesh Top

Our references to viewers and what code they are based on tends to be via shortened version numbers, thus; V1, V2, and V3. The problem now is that we no longer have viewers based purely on any one version of Linden Lab’s code.

Cool VL was based on Snow Globe code. Technically Snow Globe is version 1.5. However, that was a beginning point for Cool VL. It is no longer made from pure Snow Globe code. Code from the Lab’s version 2 and 3 are now part of Cool VL.

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Review Cool VL Viewer for Second Life

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I don’t write much about the Cool VL (Virtual Life) Viewer a viewer made/maintained by Henri Beauchamp. However, if you are using any viewer for Second Life or OpenSim, you are likely running some of Henri’s code. I won’t try to itemize all of his contributions to the SL and OpenSim communities. I will say his contributions and name shows up in many places. Today I saw that the Cool VL Viewer, formerly Cool SL Viewer, has a new release: 1.0.26.0.16 – 2011-08-27. So, I wanted to take a look at it.

Mesh Support Issue

You can learn about the viewer on the viewer’s web site:  SLDev.free.fr. You can Download Cool VL Viewer here.

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