A blog post on the Kokua/Imprudence blog states the 3.6.1 version of Kokua is out in a test version that includes the Mesh Deformer. See: Kokua 3.6.1 Mesh Deformer Test Viewer.
Kokua/Imprudence Viewers
The download is here: Additional Test Viewer Downloads. The version you want that has the Deformer is at the bottom of the page.
We seem to be coming to a crunch point in viewers. The Lab is changing things so quickly third party developers have a challenge keeping up. Henri Beauchamp does well with Cool VL Viewer, which is a viewer based on V3 code with a vintage V1 user interface.
Image by Kitty Barnett
Niran seems to have leapfrogged the Niran’s Viewer to having all the latest Linden features by jumping to a recent SL Viewer V3 model. Niran’s Viewer is now Nirans Black Dragon viewer. Niran’s features from previous versions are being added to the new SL V3 Viewer code in Black Dragon. Eventually Niran will have Black Dragon on a feature par with his previous versions.
So, both of those viewers have materials. Firestorm 4.4.1 doesn’t and Tonya Souther of the Firestorm Team explains why, in a blog post: Tracking LL’s big changes, and why the 4.4.2… well now that there is an emergency roll out… 4.4.3 version won’t either. Continue reading
The Imprudence-Kokua people have released Kokua Viewer version 3.6.0-28975. This version has the Materials System updates. Plus several other feature updates.
Kokua/Imprudence Viewers
Chat got a rework of the newer Firestorm chat.
New Point-At and Look-At options were added. Top menu, Develop->Avatar->…
The Build Panel got Copy/Paste for prim dimensions, rotation, and location, which I think is a big thing. The base code for that feature came from the Zen viewer with tweaks from Firestorm added.
I see today that the Kokua Viewer, the successor to Imprudence Viewer, has been added to the Second Life Third Party Viewer (TPV) Directory. You’ll find it listed in the second section of the list. The Kokua wiki page is here: Kokua Viewer.
Kokua/Imprudence Viewers
The second section of the directory is for viewers that do not report crashes or do not have enough users to report a significant number of reports. So, it may move to the first section when enough reports are collected.
The Kokua team has announced the release of Kokua Viewer 3.5.1. The Release Notes are here. The notes are difficult reading. The Kokua Viewer Download is here. I only see Windows and Linux versions.
They also have a development viewer: Kokua Viewer 3.5.2.
It has been a while since I took a look at a number of viewers. Rather than post them separately, I’ve lumped them together, except for Nirans. I had not used it for months, so I expected lots of changes.
The main Linden Viewer is still at version 3.4.5 (270263), pre CHUI (Chat Hub User Interface). I seldom use the Beta Viewer now. It is more of a fall back viewer for when a Development Viewer version has problems. This morning the Beta is at version 3.5.0 (271345). The Development Viewer had been at version 3.5.1 (270826) for about 10 days. Today it updated to 3.5.1 (271386).
I am still fighting with the CHUI update to keep it the size I WANT IT. Other than sizing problems I like the new CHUI. The new build 271386 seems to have some of the sizing problems fixed.
Development on the Kokua Viewer, Imprudence’s replacement, doesn’t get much coverage from me. I do have hopes for great things from it. But, Aurora Sim and Kokua seem to have fallen out of favor.
However, they are still making news. Timothy Rogers has a good article on Hypergrid Business about 10 Reasons to NOT Give Up on Aurora-Sim. And Kokua Viewer has added in code for the new CHUI (Chat Hub User Interface).
Today the Kokua Team announced:
Merge of Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI) is complete and made available for testing. This is an experimental viewer so, please review our testing best practices here. Please give this viewer as much use as possible with attention to recently added client AO and windlight capabilities. Also, regression testing of media and sound streaming is needed. Likes and dislikes can be reported in the comments to this post. Bugs need to be reported in our redmine bug tracker. Downloads are on bitbucket.
I don’t keep up with Kokua and Imprudence as much as I might and certainly not as much as I used to. Imprudence Viewer was for some time my favorite viewer for both SL and OpenSim. Soon it slipped to being my choice just for OpenSim. Then it fell so far behind I stopped using it. I still have it installed… I’m not sure why.
There is a small effort to update Imprudence. But, I think it is so far behind it is no longer usable.
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Kokua was to be the primary OpenSim viewer. I had hoped to see Aurora and Kokua offer some competition to Second Life™ by providing combined viewer and server features creators could use. I got the impression there was a goal to develop viewer and server dependent features more quickly and lower the wall between the viewer and server.
Today I see a post on the Kokua/Imprudence blog. NickyP wrote about the problems added when a developer moves from a Beta release to a production release. They are the reason that the Kokua viewer is staying a Beta Viewer.
The Team is able to develop faster because they keep it a Beta release viewer, which is a good thing.
Kokua/Imprudence Viewers
Back when the Viewer Policies changed some developers were warning that development would slow down because of all the stuff they were required to do. Now developers are finding their way around some of the more tedious requirements.
Kokua and Exodus both release numerous beta versions. They release few production releases.
The Firestorm viewer is infrequently released as it mostly comes out only in production releases. The typical beta release for Firestorm is to their QA people or maybe we should call them beta testers. Beta releases when they are released are versions that are intended to be a future production version. Some other TPV Dev’s are releasing beta versions that are much more in the line of experimental viewers that have fewer restictions.