This is the viewer that offers normal, stereoscopic 3D, and Oculus Rift viewer modes. Now it offers an interface for Kinect. Also added is a walking speed adjustment. All of these are neat additions to the basic Firestorm Viewer that turns it into the CtrlAltStudio Viewer.
This is the viewer for those using shutter glasses and Oculus. Features have been added to make use of the Oculus and Kinect more pleasant.
Jessica Lyon, the project manager for the Firestorm Viewer, posted that they will begin blocking older versions of their viewers. Jessica is anticipating the drama this will bring on. By her writing you can tell she is expecting a chorus for complaints one might hear from a 10-year old trying to manipulate their parents. I suspect she is right.
Firestorm Logo
Jessica points out they have little choice. It is either the Firestorm team blocking or the Lab will take over blocking. I’m not sure that is completely accurate. But, I can see how some will see things that way. In general the Lab does not block viewers. But, if you use the newer viewers you really don’t have a choice about updating your viewer. It automatically updates by default. But, that can be turned off.
There are mandatory updates that the Lab requires from time to time. I expect as some of the current changes being made allow better overall SL performance, which are viewer dependent, more updates are going to be mandatory. So, whether there is a misconception about what is and is not going to be blocked and by who, you are going to be updating your viewer or find yourself unable to login. Otherwise you will be degrading other people’s performance.
LEAP Motion Controller is the mouse free controller for your computer. I figured this would be a good device for use with the Oculus Rift. I went on eBay and picked up a near new one for US$50. I tried it out with the default apps and some free games.
It does not come with any app or adaption for Second Life™. One needs a free or retail app to adapt LEAP to SL. Drax made a video showing his experience with LEAP and Second Life.
[youtube mso4D8sOLmY]
The app Drax is suing is Game Wave (US$4). I tried some free apps. I didn’t find anything that would work well. So, I tried the app he is using in the video.
It has a good introductory manual, a tutorial if you will. The best I have seen explaining hand gestures for the LEAP.
Some big news from this week is the release of the ‘Interesting Viewer’, this is the viewer with improvements from the Interest List project (ILP). The project is about doing a better job of deciding what to render first.
Torley did a good job of illustrating what the project does.
[youtube W7AC1RojXOk]
For months we have been getting the server side changes from the project. For weeks we have been promised the viewer side changes. Now those changes are out in a RC Viewer release: Second Life 3.6.11 (283895) Nov 13 2013.
This week there is no roll to the main channel. Monday was a US holiday, which would normally through of this week’s rollouts. Since there is no rollout to the main channel, we should see the typical Wednesday rollout for the RC channels.
Wow Obduction made it to Server Scripting Meeting 2013-46
RC Channels
Blue Steel and Le Tigre will have the Experience Tools preparatory package running.
Magnum will have a maintenance release with bug fixes. One fix is: “Sim crossing on vehicle fails when parcel at opposite sim border is full.” (BUG-4152). Another is a case where a viewer with a high draw distance would not connect to distant regions which are within the draw distance area.
It looks like CtrlAltStudio is doing some good work. I will be interested to see what Linden Lab™ comes up with for a User Interface (UI) for Oculus Rift.
SL Server Update
The main channel is not being updated. Calab Linden provided the Deploys update this week. He did not make cler if there would be a wave of restarts are not. By the time you read this you’ll know if your region restarted or not. As yet (9:45AM PDT) I haven’t received a restart notice from my in-world home.
