Viewers

General Viewer Information

Second Life Android Viewer

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The Second Life Third Party Viewer Directory lists a new viewer for the Android 2.1 and up devices named LittleSight. It appeared on the list about September 3, 2013.

LittleSight Android SL Viewer - Image: Google Apps Store
LittleSight Android SL Viewer – Image: Google Apps Store

This is a Japanese made app. The current version according to the web site appears to be 1.2.0. But, on Google Play it is listed as version 1.4.1.

While it is listed as an app for Android 2.1 and up one user reports it working fine on 1st generation Androids. Since it is free-to-try there is little risk to checking it out.

The web site for the viewer is written in Japanese. Google Translate is not that good with Japanese. So, I find it hard to understand. That may explain my confusion over the version number.

LittleSight 1.4.1
LittleSight 1.4.1

The free app can be found on Google Play. But, it is not completely free. It may be better to call this a free to try app. The catch is you cannot teleport. You login to a single location, which you cannot select, until you purchase their service.

Users are rating LittleSight 3.1 out of 5 with 65 reviews. Mostly re views are good. Complaints I noticed are about earlier versions. It seems most of those have been fixed.

It appears to be a chat viewer for SL with the ability to use the SL World Map for navigation through SL, once you purchase the app’s service. I didn’t find a cost for the app’s service. Not having an Android I can’t really check it out.

 

Oculus Rift in Second Life’s Berlin 1920

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Jo Yardley has been talking with Björn-Christian Bönkost. Björn has a Rift SDK unit that he is using with David Rowe’s CtrlAltStudio Viewer. Björn visited Berlin in Second Life™ and Jo got him to write about it. You can read his account here: First Oculus Rift user visits Berlin.

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I think for anyone thinking of trying out the Rift, Björn ‘s comments say it very well: “I was impressed, amazed and stunned. The city is bigger than anything you can find as a demo for the rift.” 

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RestrainedLove Viewer Redo

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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.

CtrlAltStudio Viewer 1.1.0.34244 Oculus

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There is now a viewer out with some Oculus Rift support. It is incomplete. But, according to the web site you can stick your head in and look around. See: An Initial Foray into Second Life with the Oculus Rift.

There is currently no User Interface. The author of CtrlAltStudi Viewer, David Rowe, says the Lab will soon release a Oculus Viewer with a UI. I’m not sure exactly what ‘soon’ means in this case.

As it is now:

Use the viewer as normal to get to where you want to go, then toggle into “Riftlook” mode (“3D” toolbar button or Ctrl-Alt-3) and don your Rift headset. Move your head to look around and use the arrow or WASD keys to move about. “Forwards” is the direction your Rift was pointing when you toggled into Riftlook. It makes most sense to use it while sitting down.

Jo Yardley is going to love this.

Second Life’s SSA 2013-34

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Server Side Appearance baking is considered a success. We still have some bake fail issues and I’ll get to those. The Firestorm team has put out an article about SSA here: Server Side Appearance a Success! This article is worth the time to read. Jessica Lyon points out how the ignorant are complaining about how the Lab should have worked on something that really needed fixing… like bake fail was not a big enough problem.

Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-34
Third Party Viewer Meeting 2013-34

Nyx Linden spoke at the TPV Dev’s meeting Friday (week 43) about SSA. Friday a new set of SSA changes were going external that means the SSA code the Lab has been working on for the viewer was made public. TPV Dev’s can now look at the code, find bugs, problems, and begin adding it to their development code.

Nyx says the Lab has this new code working in their development viewers. But, they currently consider it mostly untested. I suppose that means it has not passed through formal QA testing on the way to a viewer release candidate and remains mostly in development. 

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