Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
I see a new page appeared in the Wiki yesterday, Viewerhelp: Map File/Second Life/3.2.2. Rand Linden added it.
This is like a table of contents for SL Viewer 3.2.2 help. There is nothing earthshakingly new. Most pages are stubs with very little text. So, if you like writing help articles, check it out.
Additional attachment points are always handy. We are apparently getting two more.
Those of us working with rigged mesh to make avatar bodies and clothes can see the neck bone in the skeleton. Even before a large number of people started looking at the skeleton and asking why can’t we attach things there, people were asking for a neck attachment point.
If you are wondering how people knew about it… animators knew about it because the ‘neck bone’ can be controlled in an animation.
Now the neck attachment point is in testing in the Development Viewer. See JIRA STORM-1672. Previously labeled VWR-26120. If you like the idea, vote for it by clicking WATCH.
In this week’s mesh meeting the topic of viewer fixes being stuck in the development pipeline came up. For some time we have been dealing with viewer issues from OpenGL.
Runitai Linden said this in the Mesh Meeting:
The GL compatibility pass that hasn’t shipped yet is still in QA — it’s a very large change and there are still several regressions that need addressing before it ships.
In regard to fixes not making it to the main viewer:
It’s really a side effect of having a rapid release cycle — not every release can contain all the bugs that have been fixed because integrating them takes time — we have to pick which ones go in first.
Some of the remaining problems with the fixes are performance related, taking the Mac side to 5 to 10 FPS on good hardware. Until that problem is found and fixed it holds the process up for those related fixes.
For those with serious OpenGL issues, try the Shining Fixes branch of viewer development. SL Shining Viewer Download – build 3.2.1-244115 today.
Also, the SL Development Viewer (build 3.2.1-244112) has a number of fixes in it.
Be warned these viewer will have other problems and probably new bugs and returning old ones. Its part of the development cycle.
I made this post to avoid typing this information into the SL Forum a gazillion times. I was answering this type of question for the third time today. (Last updated April 2023)
There are a number of reasons one cannot log in or stay logged into Second Life. One of the more significant reasons is a poor connection. You may have a good Internet connection and a bad connection to SL. A poor connection can be caused by multiple problems in different locations. In this article, I try to give you some troubleshooting tips to help find where the problem is and who can fix it.
The problem may be in your computer, router, modem, ISP’s hardware, backbone hardware, Linden Lab’s hardware, or their software. We need to figure out which.
I’m Windows-based. So, this article is Windows oriented. But, all the same problems exist for Mac and Linux users. The Mac and Linux users will have to translate Windows commands. Sorry. I just don’t know them.
If you can log into Second Life, do so. If not, check the grid status to make sure it is not a problem with Second Life. Or look at the concurrent user graph at Etitsup.com. You should see a smoothly curving line. An abrupt drop shows a general problem.
Also, try logging into a different region. Before logging in open Preferences->General->Start Location – Show at Login and enable the option. After closing Preferences, you’ll see a new field by the login button, ‘Start At:’. Try a Linden-owned region like Pooley or Furball. If you still cannot log in skip down to On Your End and SpeedTest.net.
Update: Jan 2018 – SpeedTest.net has changed. They no longer allow you to test to a city or server of your choice. So, for these tests, the site is was useless for our purposes. You’ll have to Google for an Internet speed test on a specific server and hope to find a good one. I’m looking… Found – see: Internet Speed Tests. – Update April 2023 – The Firestorm Viewer Team has information up on testing your connection speed HERE. The article has been updated but while they tell how little the Max Bandwidth setting will affect performance they also left all the advice for what it can affect from days of old. Don’t expect much from tweaking your bandwidth setting.
A new Phoenix Hour meeting was last week. I’ve indexed the video below. You’ll see indexing after the summary. You can find the video here: Phoenix Hour Oct. 18, 2011.
There is not much new information this week. I decided to condense it down to quick summary.
Both Firestorm and Phoenix are waiting on Linden Lab fixes to problems in the V3 code. That means we do not know when we will see the next release of either. Last week several adoption blockers were discussed. Most of those are now taken care of, so the next release probably won’t be a beta.
Also, the next release of both viewers will have mesh rendering. Firestorm almost has a working mesh upload. They will also include a right click feature to have the selected texture download from the server. This is for those things that just simply won’t rez.
In my article Kirsten Viewer Update I covered the effort of people to raise enough money to pay Lee to continue development of the Kirsten Viewer. That effort is under way.
This is a reminder of the need for more money. Remember, you get your money back if the project does not reach its goal.
You can help in world by placing reminders around. I have in-world prims that link to the CrowdFunder site. The image to the left is what they look like. The previous one that was self updating had problems. The new one is just a link to the CrowdFunder site and Kirsten’s Viewer project.
Please help out by contributing or setting one of the sign/links out.