Firestorm

#SL Viewer Shock Wave

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I saw today that Linden Lab has announced revisions to their Third Party Viewer policy. The Firestorm/Phoenix tema has already posted a reaction. They are also planning to discuss the changes at their next Phoenix Hour, planned for Feb. 28 at 2 PM SLT/PST.

I think Jessica phrases their take on the meaning of the changes in a pessimistic take. However, she may well be right. It is hard to know. You can read her take on the changes on the Firestorm/Phoenix blog. See: New additions to the Third Party Viewer Policy.

You can see the policy change announcement here: Third Party Viewer Policy Changes.

These changes, if intended as Jessica takes them, will be explosive. I see the changes impacting Firestorm and other viewer negatively. Exodus and Nirans viewers may become ineligible to connect to the grid. If so, I’m sure this will create a massive amount of blow back.

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#SL Firestorm 3.3.0 (24880) Release Review

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I heard there is a new Phoenix Hour out. I suppose someday it will change to a Firestorm Hour. At about the same time the Phoenix Hours restart the next release of Firestorm is released.

This release has a load of features. As best I can tell all the Phoenix features have made it over to Firestorm.  In addition to those features new ones have been added. A good example is the Particle Editor. The code for the Particle Editor was written by Zi Ree. I understand it was written for Firestorm and shared with the community. I first saw the editor in Dolphin Viewer-3 in mid December last year. It has been popping up in other TPV’s ever since.

Particle Editor

Finding the Particle Editor is a bit trick. It is not part of the standard build panel as I expected it would be. After all one is editing a prim’s attributes, so it seems to me that is where it would be. The number of controls in the panel would be difficult to put in a build panel tab.

The Particle Editor

To use the Particle Editor create or edit a prim. Then in the top menu open Build -> Objects -> Edit Particles. Not overly intuitive. It would seem a button in the Build panel to open the editor would be more intuitive. The Features tab seems like an obvious place to put a button.

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My Take on the Firestorm-Phoenix Q&A Video

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If you read the announcement of the Firestorm-Phoenix (FS-PH) Q & A, you know there was a reason for having the secession. Jessica Lyon, the voice for the FS-PH Team, said the reason was anger and frustration in the community. So, what is the anger and frustration about and where is it coming from?

[youtube G4eIB-BGYCU]

You probably know Third Party Viewers (TPV) developers are leaving, KirstenLee and Kirstens Viewer, and new ones are appearing, Cinder and Milkshake Viewer. We also know Linden Lab is advancing their viewer at a blistering pace. In general we see things moving forward and new technology is adopted. A Neilson report shows that Second Life has almost doubled market share (New World Notes) in the last few months.

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Firestorm-Phoenix QnA

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The Firestorm-Phoenix team is going to have a Question and Answer secession this Saturday. The announcement is on the Phoenix blog.

Firestorm Release

The meeting is at 1 PM SLT in three regions; Rockcliffe I, Rockcliffe Library, and Agile 3D. Arrive early and divide up by name:

Check your script weight before linking. Get it as low as possible.

Bring your questions about the viewers and their future.

If you can’t make it, they will have a video available later.

Firestorm Viewer 3.2.2.24336 Review

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The production release of the Firestorm Viewer is here. It has taken 15 months from the preview to this production viewer. The team has essentially combined the features from the Phoenix Viewer with the new Linden Lab Viewer and technology while giving it a custom user interface.

Significant portions of the Lab’s technology have been changing while the team was working. The team had a changing foundation to deal with as they built. For now, the team feels they have caught up with the Lab. Check it out. The following is what I found.

Second Life
New Firestorm Splash Screen

In February of this year we saw the first previews of the Firestorm viewer in a video, see: Firestorm Viewer Preview, and a preview version of the viewer. Since then releases of the Firestorm Viewer have been few and far between. I think that phase of Firestorm’s development is over. I expect to see the release cycle speed up.

We are promised another release of Phoenix. I doubt we will see any more development in Phoenix once it gets mesh. Once that release is out we will see all of the team’s effort placed into Firestorm. There will probably be some bug fixes on Phoenix, but Firestorm is the replacement for Phoenix.

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Firestorm Viewer 3.2.2.24336 Released

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The Firestorm-Phoenix team has released a production version of the Firestorm Viewer.

Download Firestorm 3.2.2.24336

Linden Lab has been making a number of changes to viewer graphics. Many of them have made it into this release. But, the team decided to make another release (3.2.1.24179) without all the new fixes. So, if you have problems with FS 3.2.2 download and try FS 3.2.1.

Download Firestorm 3.2.1.24179

I’ll be trying the viewer Monday. Once I’ve had some time to play with it I’ll write a review.