Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
Recently we have seen a number of people complaining about getting disconnected, repeatedly. No one has determined if it is an SL problem or just problems local to the users being disconnected.
The main release SL Viewer today is: 3.6.12-284506. I expect that to change this week.
The RC viewers are now:
We have more project viewers this week:
I wrote about a problem with the viewer repeatedly downloading updates. The cause is the shortcut a person uses to start the viewer. Initially it was the folder name that changed and threw off the shortcut. Now my recent update to 3.6.13 went into an update loop.
It seems the SL Viewer program in 3.6.11 was named SecondLife.exe. The new 3.6.13 program is named: SecondLifeViewer.exe. So, if you have a shortcut pinned to your desktop, you will probably need to change it again. Just unpin it.
The viewer update or install will create a new shortcut on your desktop. That new shortcut can be pinned to you task bar via right-click drag and drop.
You can also find a shortcut in the Second Life folder in: Programs Files (x86)/SecondLifeViewer. That can be dragged to the task bar and pinned too.
Second Life is now in a no change window. So, there will be no server rollouts this week. Nor will the main SL Viewer update. We might still see an RC Viewer update or two. The current no change window ends January 1. That only leaves two days in the week for changes to rollout. I don’t expect much change in that two day period.
Holidays are here and I’m busy with real life stuff. That means there won’t be much stuff in this blog for the next couple weeks.
Inara Pey has an article up about Fitted Mesh. See: Fitted Mesh: “last call” for issues; release candidate “after the holiday”. Inara points out the Lindens’ calls for feedback on Fitted Mesh. It seems the Lindens’ plans are to have a project viewer out early in the new year. Early as in just after the holidays. That makes it urgent to get your feedback regarding Fitted Mesh in as soon as possible.
This is sort of a ‘speak now or forever more hold your peace’ type of thing.
While Oz Linden has said they may make additional changes to the avatar, the window for changes to be made to the avatar skeleton is closing. Changes and fixes to the skeleton not made now will likely have to wait some time, like years. So, get the Fitted Mesh Project Viewer and make sure things work as you want.
Suggestions, changes, and feature suggestions should be made in FITMESH project section of the SL JIRA.
Avastar users should keep checking the download page for test versions that work with the new avatar skeleton and collision bones.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
This viewer is dated Dec 4 2013 04:55:18 (Second Life Release) in Help->About… But, it just updated on my machine today as a required update. Meaning I needed to install it before logging in. I still find that annoying.
But, the release notes for Second Life Release Viewer version 3.6.13.284757 just popped up on the wiki. So I expect to see another update soon.
Changes in 3.6.13 are:
A new version of the Kokua Viewer is out. This viewer includes the Second Life (SL) Viewer 3.6.11 (GPU Table cohort) and 3.6.12 (Name Updater cohort). The updates make no user discernible changes to the viewer.
There are changes to the Kokua Viewer UI and a British English option has been added.
See: Kokua-3-6.12 is released.
From the Third Party Viewer meeting we learn that the viewer install code has been changed to make use of RC and Project installs easier for the Lab and TPV Dev’s. Earlier I mentioned Name RC Viewer as having the program code changes that allow viewers to be more easily named. Being able to better control channel names cleans up some install problems as well as data tracking.
I am taking what I hear Oz Linden saying about not wanting to get into the details of this change to mean it is complex with Linden preferences driving some of the changes. As long as things work better, none of the detail matters to me.
The Maintenance RC Viewer had a really bad crash rate. It has been withdrawn and users pushed to other viewer versions. If you installed it and disabled automatic updates, you need to replace it.