Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
There have been a couple of updates to the Black Dragon Viewer since I started using 2.4.2.6. NiranV is up to release 2.4.3.1. The changes fix some minor problems, adds Windows 10 support (Win 10 coming the end of the month), and includes the change to how we can use clothing layers.
RLVa is still broken… but, that’s not a Black Dragon issue, if I remember correctly.
A new release of the Alchemy Viewer is out, Alchemy Beta 3.8.0. This not new news… I’m just catching up. There is not much one can say about what is new in Alchemy as they aren’t telling, deciding to let it be a surprise to users. Right.
The release notes read:
But, there are a number of Alchemy changes if you scroll down. One interesting one is the ability to export a group membership list to a CSV file. That could be useful. Exporting ban lists for use in other groups might be more useful. Also, added to the inventory panel filters is an option to filter LINKs, the basic entry used in the Outfits folder. Third party viewers allow LINKs to be created outside the Outfits folder. So, I can see a need to search for LINKs.
Tuesday (6/30) at about 11 AM PT the Lindens announced the partial release of Experience Tools. I write ‘partial’ because they are only fully released to Premium Members. This afternoon the 3.8.0 (302622) Jun 12 viewer automatically downloaded and I installed it.
This is also the main viewer now. Look at the download page.
That is a Jul 2, 2014 video.
The announcement is here: Experience Tools Available Now For Premium Members!
All users can get the viewer and use it. My understanding is only Premium Members can build experiences with this viewer, but all users can enjoy the experiences.
There is a knowledge Base article that helps you get started creating experiences. See: Experiences in Second Life. This is for both those wanting to participate in an experience and those wanting to create an experience.
There is a forum section the beta testers and early adopters used. It is now open to all. See: Experience Tools Forum.
You can find experiences to play in Second Life™ here; Resident-created experiences in our Destination Guide and the Linden Portal Parks.
I’ve been seeing slower rendering of scenes in Second Life™ for some time. It’s like taking 4 steps better-forward, 2 worse-back, 1 back, 1 forward… changing often with each viewer release. It is hard for me to tell if it is me/my-computer or actually the viewer changing. Now others are mentioning that things are taking a long time to render, which suggests it is more the viewer than it is me. Enough so that a developer asked at the Third Party Devs’ meeting if there had been any changes to the interest list processing that may have slowed things down.
Oz Linden answered there have been no deliberate changes to the interest list. He also points out that as complicated as the SL system is other changes could affect the interest list processing. So, Oz wants to hear about misbehaving render.
We still have a debate ongoing in Second Life™ over on SLUniverse in the discussion started by Adeon Writer, Dear Mesh Content Creators: Please stop making your content on Firestorm, continues. I provided my thoughts in Second Life LoD Problems – Is Firestorm to Blame. In that article you’ll see I think designer and consumer ignorance are to blame. I also see plenty of fascist rule makers out proposing their solutions.
I prefer freedom and free market solutions over rules.
One of the solutions proposed in:
BUG-6243 – Provide an informative warning when creating sculpts or mesh that may render improperly for others.
That places everything on the designer and provides no incentive for the designer to comply. I prefer something to provide information to everyone about what everything is doing to our render efficiency. That is why I filed:
Last week (#25) was the Third Party Developers meeting. We have interesting things to talk about from that meeting. Since I am doing short periods of writing between my Norco inspired naps that news will out in a series of short articles.
RC Second Life VMM Viewer version 3.7.31.302677 is out. (NMM = Viewer Managed Marketplace) The comment in the release notes says, “This viewer allows Merchants to manage inventory associated with Marketplace Listings from within the viewer. In addition to making management of Marketplace Listings easier, sale of items that Merchants do not have the right to copy will now be supported with Viewer-Managed Marketplace.”