Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
Today Lee posted on the Kirsten Viewer blog. The post is an update on the current effort to get Lee funding so that he can afford to work on the viewer and support Dawny. He discusses the goals for and results of the funding.
[youtube fZ811O1hlx4]
Lee is looking for funding to reach the point it can cover a year of development. For one with obligations that is understandable. Basically he is saying, hire me for a year or I need to get a job that will. That covers his comfort zone.
I’ve done pretty well with the development viewers, until today. I installed Second Life 3.1.1 (242977) Oct 16 2011 10:50:04 (Second Life Development). I started it and crashed shortly after login. I think as soon as it tried to render the world.
We have seen lots of viewer crashes from the OpenGL problems. Most of those have been with the new video cards and drivers. With this version of the SLViewer I got an error with my 8800 GTS and driver 270.61 (8.17.12.7061).
You can find the latest Phoenix Hour video here: Phoenix Hour. The following is my summary of the Hour. There are several interesting items disclosed in the meeting. But, there are no ETA’s on FS (Firestorm) or PH (Phoenix) release dates. There is one BIG PROBLEM looking ahead, see 53:00.
01:00 – 1 year of Phoenix Hour Shows
02:00 – LL server upgrades – No one had any clue what they were talking about. You can skip this section. See the Server News here. In the menu click The Stuff -> SL Server Related.
04:00 – Fake support groups. A number of fake support groups with rather rude and abusive support people pose as Phoenix support groups. This is resulting in complaint coming into the Phoenix Team.
One can tell if the group is a ‘real’ Phoenix support group. Look in the member list for Jessica Lyon or Ed Merryman. If a group is a real Phoenix group, it will have one or both of these names as the group owners. Use the fake groups at your own risk.
Lance has release a new version of the Dolphin Viewer. A problem with it not saving your preferences has been fixed.
This one is a very standard download and install. Nothing new and no gotcha’s to deal with.
I stumbled across the Local Bitmap Browser that has apparently been part of the Dolphin Viewer since version 3.0.9. This feature allows you to work with textures on your hard disc without having to pay an upload fee. This is like the Temp Uploads in other viewers with some nice differences.
I came across an old wiki page that is getting new updates. Rob Linden started the page in 2006. For the last few months Oz Linden and Wolfpup Lowenhar have been updating the page almost weekly. If you are interested in what is going on in viewer development, you may find the page interesting. Downloading … Read more
Thursday a new post appeared on the Exodus Viewer blog explaining two features of this new viewer. HDR and FXAA. I had guessed, wrongly, that the HDR was High Definition Render. It is High Dynamic Range. My guess average is sliding down…
The article provides a good explanation of the subject terms HDR and FXAA. But, they don’t explain all the terms they use, like MSAA and others. So, I’ll give a try at an explanation too.
HDR or HDRI is High Dynamic Range Imaging. Exodus explains it and you can find more detailed information in the Wikipedia: HDRI.
If you have used film based photography or the older digital cameras you have run into RANGE problems. Neither could handle the range of bright and dark the eye can see. So, photographs and digital images never looked quite real because we could not see detail in the bright or dark areas of a picture. The top edge of tire in a car’s wheel well would disappear into the black of the wheel well.
Photoshop users can correct the problem to some extent using LEVELS or CURVES.