Viewers

General Viewer Information

Connecting to Second Life

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People have been having problems connecting to Second Life™ for as long as I have been using SL, probably longer. As the viewer is shifted to use more HTTP protocol services some are seeing better performance and others worse performance. Whatever the case, more use of HTTP is coming.

HTTP Library

Monty Linden has been working on the communications library used with Second Life. In general we know that work as the HTTP Library. The library is a file that contains all the code to run the HTTP communications channels for the viewer.

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Second Life Deferred Render

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There is a problem with Deferred Render (L&S = Lighting & Shadows) crashing some viewers. The Firestorm Viewer team thinks most people cannot run L&S. That may say more about who is using Firestorm and Phoenix rather than SL users. But, as far as I know there are no good stats to answer the question of how many people can run L&S, at least not in regard to SL users.

As we move forward this will be a more important issue. It certainly makes a difference in how Second Life™ appears on your screen.

What it is?

Deferred Rendering is a high fidelity render of lighting and in some systems shadows. There is no limit to the number of lights that can be rendered, which is a big step up from the 6 or 8 lights we could previously render in SL.

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CHUI Project Viewer Update

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Ciaran Laval has an article about the recent update to the Lab’s CHUI Project Viewer. (CHUI = Chat Hub User Interface) Checho out the article: CHUI Project Viewer Gets An Update.

There are some new features and a bit of a change in organization of the Hub. I think it is getting beyter.

One nice feature is the access to past conversations. I’ve been using Notepad++ and digging through the hard drive to pull up conversations and transcripts of user group meetings. While I find that easy and don’t really need the feature, this will make the chat histories available to new users and those not into hard disk geekdom.

Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Release Review

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I keep wondering why I get so many hits on the Astra Viewer. My last review was in November 2011. The web site for the viewer seems to have disappeared.  I had assumed that development on the viewer had stopped. But, it seems not.

Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Splash Page
Astra Viewer 1.6.4.1 Splash Page

One can Download Astra Viewer from Github: aurora-sim / Astra Viewer – Download. This version is 7 months old. I can’t really see where it is being actively maintained. But it seems to get updated every 3 to 6 months, which would suggest a new update may arrive at any time.

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Beyond the Phoenix Viewer

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Saturday Jessica Lyon, representing the Firestorm development team and support groups, spoke at the first Phoenix Hour since March 2012. This meeting was to announce the coming end of support for the Phoenix Viewer. That announcement could have been a sentence on the blog. So, why have a Phoenix Hour meeting to make the announcement?

Nature

Part of human nature is people having personality and beliefs. The nature of Jessica, the leader of the development team, is such that she is a volunteer. That says something, good I think, about Jessica. So, Jessica was doing her best to explain why they have chosen to end support for the Phoenix Viewer.

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