Firestorm

Kokua Viewer Released for OpenSim

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The Kokua team made an announcement. They will be spitting development of their viewer, forking in geek speak. They will make a viewer for OpenSim and one for SL.

Pathfinding and various other things work only on one grid or the other. Now that Linden Lab is going to a CDN system the incompatibilities between is such that OpenSim servers and hosting system will have to change. This is going to be significant incompatibility. The OpenSim host will have to think about how they will handle it. Will OpenSim grids move to CDN? I have never looked into the cost of CDN service, but it is a cost. In the low income realm of OpenSim any additional cost is a problem.

So, as of Kokua Viewer 3.7.8.35024 the Kokua team will be putting out an SL and an OpenSim version of the viewer. This latest one is for OpenSim.

There was a duel use viewer released, I think, as 3.7.12. But, it was having problems on some grids. The numbering indicates a bit of a regression for the OpenSim versions.

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Second Life Bits 2014-35

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Skill Gaming

Ciaran has an article up on what Skill Gaming is. If there is any confusion on your part check it out. See: LL Issue Reminder And Warning On Skill Gaming Policy. His information is based on Linden Lab’s latest: Reminder: New Skill Gaming Policy in Effect September 1, 2014.

Be sure to check out the comments below that article. It seems they are a bit one sided… Where do all these negative people come from?

Video for Noobies

Purdie Silkmour made a video that popped up on YouTube today: How To Improve Your Appearance in Second Life. (11 minutes) This is much better than your typical SL How To. Purdie does a great job of showing how to change avatar appearance and gives a good taste of the verity in Second Life. Plus they get to see search in action and learn how to find shapes, skins, etc. It isn’t just about the technical details of using SL. Nice!

[youtube j0vwEfO8O44]

I think the big problem is how to get this video in front of new SL users. This would be a good URL to save and give to new peeps you meet.

It seems there is a series of these videos… well two. 

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3DConnextion SpaceNavigator v10 for Second Life

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I have an update of this article: SpaceNavigator, Windows 10, and Second Life (9/2016). The information here has useful content. If you just want to get your SpaceNavigator working, jump to the newer article.

I found a deal on eBay for a SpaceNavigator, I bid and got it. It arrived. Yay! It works with everything BUT Second Life™. What a downer. Then I find out that 3D Connexion no longer supports Second Life. Eek!

But, people are using Spacenavigator (SN) with SL, so what is the deal and how does one get it to work? Torley has videos on how to use it… people are posting about using it in various places…

The SN Help Manual is of no use. It barely covers the basics.

Fortunately there is a page in the wiki that mostly explains how to get it working with SL and the latest SN software (3DxWare64_v10-1-4_r1818). It is not easy and there are gotchas in the wiki page. The page is titled: Flycam. Yeah, I would have thought of that for a title first thing…

SpaceNavigator NOT working (v10)
SpaceNavigator NOT working (v10)

As you have probably Google’d for help before getting here you have likely seen posts about how to create a SN profile for Second Life. Those are pre-2013 as best I can tell and the software changed some time in 2013. I can’t find any way to create a profile via the 3DConnexion software v10. But, there are posts in the 3DConnexion site that help. I’ve used those to figure out how to get my SN working the way I want it to.

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Firestorm Viewer Release 4.6.7-42398 is Here

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Firestorm has released a new viewer. That happened Sunday sometime. The announcement is here: Firestorm Viewer Release 4.6.7-42398.

There are some great fixes in this version. One for Mac users is the Alt-cam clicking that sent the camera flying away. There is still work being done on selecting things in Mac versions, so there is more to come along this line. And there is a 64-bit Beta Mac version. They also have a partial fix for the s l o w typing bug on Mac. I’ll refer you to Inara’s article for the details on that.

OPen Source Meeting - 2014-34
OPen Source Meeting – 2014-34

Inara Pey has a review of the viewer up here: Firestorm 4.6.7: rolling forward. I’ll cover things she didn’t and some she did.

She points out that Mac users on 4.4.2 will be able to continue using it. It will not be subjected to Firestorm’s 3-version rule UNTIL all the Cocoa bugs are fixed. This is a big concession from the FS Team. It would be easier for them to not have to support more than 3 versions.

If you are running 4.5.1 Beta, it is going to be blocked soon. So, upgrade before you find yourself locked out of SL on that viewer.

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Second Life’s Firestorm Viewer 4.6.7 – Soon?

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We know that a new release of the Firestorm Viewer is getting close because the team has been talking about it. Today I am seeing the wiki changes that proceed a release. So, we are getting very close. The wiki changes mean they have likely gone to feature-lock. Not much point trying to write about what’s changed while things are still changing.

Firestorm Logo
Firestorm Logo

The current version is 4.6.5 (40833). The new wiki pages are using 4.6.7.42398 as the new version number.

All this is in progress and may change, but I suspect it won’t. The wiki pages are being edited and THEY will change. It is hard to tell what is new and what is old in the pages as to some extent they seem to have been copied from a previous update page. There are several “Fix It” notes here and there.

The current editing on the page says the viewer merges to Linden Lab 3.7.5 codebase… the last release was merging up to 3.7.4… I am hoping this is just an editing stage and the 3.7.5 number is a place holder. The current Linden code base is at 3.7.13 with the Linden wiki now showing changes indicating a coming release of version 3.7.14, which may happen today or Monday…. That’s my pure guess, it could be longer.

The updates to Firestorm are mostly fixes. But, there is a healthy dose of new features and feature tweaks currently showing on the preliminary pages. It is not a huge page but there is plenty of good stuff listed and some nice feature improvements, like Radar now showing typing or sitting indicators and the ability to omit blocked avatars from showing on the map.

In all it looks like a version to look forward to.

I am using Firestorm more for photography now than I have over the past year. I also hope to do more machinima and get better at it. The Firestorm Viewer is certainly my choice for those tasks. So, I am looking forward to the coming release.

Second Life Mirrors (real mirrors) – Possible?

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Inara Pey has an article up covering the news that we may someday soon see real mirrors in Second Life. So, I’m not going to go into detail here. See: Reflections on a prim: a potential way to create mirrors in SL.

[youtube JhN2HnQl6g8]

Zi Ree of the Firestorm team is playing with implementing such a feature. See JIRA item: STORM-2055 – Real mirror reflections on prims. 

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