Second Life News 2014-47

Group Chat

Simon Linden Tells us:

Yes some of the chat servers have been having troubles in the last few days.   I’ve been looking into that … the code running there isn’t super new, and the outages might be timed with some of those [hardware update] restarts.

In any case, there is an update soon for the chat servers, and already another in the pipeline.

Servers

Photo Shoot w/Mr. S
Photo Shoot w/Mr. S

This week there are no rolls for either the main channel or RC channels. Next week is a no change week. So, I expect no roll outs that week either.

We can expect tweaking to the CDN system. This week whatever they are doing that requires multiple restarts is ongoing.

The main reason for no updates is the hardware updating requiring the restarts scheduled for this week. Estimating time for any individual update or the group is difficult as Simon says, “We also have to actually open up the server box and look inside to see if it needs an update, so it’s random how long each one takes.

This shouldn’t do anything grid-wide, aside from extra region restarts.” 

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Restrained Love Viewer 2.9

Marine Kelley has announced the release of viewer version 2.9. See: Restrained Love Viewer v2.9. This is the version with additional camera controls.

Marine describes the changes this way: “In essence, the goal is to let a script restrict the camera and the view : how far and how close the camera can go, how clearly and how far the user can see, and whether to let the camera go through walls or not.”

 

RestrainedLove Viewer Redo

Just days ago Marine released a new version of the RL Viewer. It had the replacement feature for z-Offset, Hover, Height Adjust, or whatever you want to call it. The problem is it had a gotcha Marine did not anticipate. But, that has been fixed and new version of the viewer is out.

This is a bit of a messy fix. Marine got it working. But, is not real proud of the hacky code needed to make it work. But, it works.

Also, it is not that easy or straight forward to use. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.

See: RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.5.5.

Second Life Height Offset

Third party viewer users are accustomed to have the a feature know as avatar z-offset or height offset. This feature allowed us to precisely control our avatars vertical position. Whether walking, sitting, or ground sitting we could adjust the avatar’s vertical position in relation to the ground or a floor.

The roll out of SSA broke this feature. It appears this is the thing most often asked about in various support groups since SSA rolled out. At least it is the question I see most consistently being asked. Well, that and temporary texture upload. But, temporary texture upload has been replaced with Local Textures for some time.

Today I see the Marine Kelly has an article out about a fix for Height Offset. See: RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.5.3 with Z offset fix. Marine also explains how to use Local textures in her article. 

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RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.5.1

A new release of RLViewer is out. You don’t really need it… no, I’m being nice. There is a problem with version 2.8.5.0 and version 2.5.8.1 is sort of a fix. Or you can just follow directions in the announcement post and fix your currently installed 2.8.5.0 version viewer.

See: RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.5.1. You need to copy 5 files from the SL Viewer install folder over to the RLV folder.

Or download the new RestrainedLove Viewer 2.8.5.1 version here.

There is also a problem with Materials in the viewer. It breaks InvisiPrims… REALLY!!! I thought that had been broken in the SL Viewers forever. Whatever, Marine Kelley has been providing support for InvisiPrims because some RLV products need them to hide parts of the avatar under script control.

It looks like Marine is not going to be able to cobble up a working fix. Marine is planning to change the products to operate a different way. So, I guess start writing off InvisiPrims permanently.

 

Viewer Updates 2013-27

We seem to be coming to a crunch point in viewers. The Lab is changing things so quickly third party developers have a challenge keeping up. Henri Beauchamp does well with Cool VL Viewer, which is a viewer based on V3 code with a vintage V1 user interface.

Kitty
Image by Kitty Barnett

Niran seems to have leapfrogged the Niran’s Viewer to having all the latest Linden features by jumping to a recent SL Viewer V3 model. Niran’s Viewer is now Nirans Black Dragon viewer. Niran’s features from previous versions are being added to the new SL V3 Viewer code in Black Dragon. Eventually Niran will have Black Dragon on a feature par with his previous versions.

So, both of those viewers have materials. Firestorm 4.4.1 doesn’t and Tonya Souther of the Firestorm Team explains why, in a blog post: Tracking LL’s big changes, and why the 4.4.2… well now that there is an emergency roll out… 4.4.3 version won’t either. 

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