Viewers – Page 128 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Second Life News 2013-25

2013/06/16 by Nalates Urriah

Viewer changes are picking up speed. As the new multi-channel process moves forward we will see more viewer projects moving forward. Some of these things are things I’ve written about weeks and months ago. Now they are coming to a viewer near you.

TPV Dev's Meeting 2013-24 — TPV Dev’s Meeting 2013-24

Inara has written an update on the SSA (Server Side Appearance): SL projects update 24 (5). See it for details. The summary of that news is simple. We are likely to see SSA enabled over the next 2 to 6 weeks. I expect it to SLOWLY creep across the grid. The server side code has already been rolled out to the main channel. Now it is just a matter of enabling it on the regions. But, there are concerns about problems and whether the new servers can carry the load. So, this will be a very careful roll out.

Experience Tools 2013-24

2013/06/142013/06/14 by Nalates Urriah

Do you remember the Experience Tools? Officially they were called Advanced Experience Tools, I suppose they still are. We have been hearing a rumor or two here and there. We have gotten a clue or two from Lindens in the User Group meetings.

The video below is an old one…

[youtube mGPiywc6Hh0]

Don’t try to join the group mentioned in the video. We have no idea whether this group will come back to life or not.

Back in March 2012 the Lindens released the above video on the tools (see: #SL Video of Linden Realms Tools). We know that a server change for experience tools was rolled to the main grid some time ago (in RC May 2013 week 19).

Today Oz Linden updated the wiki with new information on viewer repositories. One of the beta viewer projects is an Experience Tools viewer. So, we are getting closer to seeing what the tools are. (See: Linden Lab Official: Viewer Source Repositories. Unfortunately the repository is still set to private. So, we cannot see the viewer code or get a running copy of the viewer. But, I take posting of the repository as a step toward public release.

Moving Your Avatar

2013/12/192013/06/14 by Nalates Urriah

Strawberry Singh is well known for her personality and gorgeous pictures. She has a talent for posing an avatar and composing a great image. In the blog post Moving your own Avatar! she explains how to position your avatar. I mean to actually move the avatar.

Singh Logo

One of the ways to move an avatar into just the right position for a photo is to sit it on a prim, play the pose, and make the prim invisible. You can edit the prim and move it wherever you want. Of course the avatar goes with it. But, things get much more complicated when you are in a no rez region.

That is when Strawberry’s tips will come in way handy.

SSA Context

2013/06/08 by Nalates Urriah

The week of May 26 to June 1 Oz Linden checked and reported that 1,665 different viewer versions that logged into Second Life™. That is an approximation of the number of different viewers in use. The SL system records viewer version strings. Each version of a viewer is to have a unique ID string. But, this is open source and people do whatever they do. So, there is a probability some ID strings don’t get changed. Thus I say approximate.

Some of these versions are one user only viewers, meaning: someone compiles a viewer for their own amusement and use. They never distribute the version. They may or may not change the version string.

Then there are the griefer viewers. They try to imitate other viewers and may duplicate another viewer’s version string to hide.

The result is going to be more viewer versions than the system recognizes.

Viewer Stability 2013-23

2013/06/05 by Nalates Urriah

The Third Party Viewers List is ordered by crash rates with the highest crash rate last. It is interesting to look at this list and see which viewers are better or worse from previous weeks.

Yesterday the list was updated. Surprisingly Firestorm lost its first place position. That needs some explaining, because I think Firestorm is the most stable viewer going.

First off Radegast holds first place in the list. BUT it is a non-graphical viewer. It is a text only viewer. So, it lacks most of the code that has problems, the 3D rendering pipeline. So, I don’t count it.

Yesterday the SL Beta Viewer 3.6.0 moved ahead of Firestorm 4.4.0. Well yay! Linden Lab. Congratulations.

S19 Viewer Controversy

2013/06/02 by Nalates Urriah

For some time I have covered Henri Beauchamp’s Cool VL Viewer and KirstenLee Cinquetti’s Kirsten ‘S’ Series Viewers. So, I am bummed to find out something is not right and we appear to have another viewer scandal.

Henri’s viewer uses a V1 interface, which I gave up on some time ago. But the viewer is a solid viewer made mostly of V3 or, at least, V3 adapted code. Probably more accurate way to say this is to say Henri has adapted a V1 user interface to run on new V3 code. Henri has been contributing viewer code to the community for a long time, well before I came around.