Kokua Viewer on TPV List

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I see today that the Kokua Viewer, the successor to Imprudence Viewer, has been added to the Second Life Third Party Viewer (TPV) Directory. You’ll find it listed in the second section of the list. The Kokua wiki page is here: Kokua Viewer.

Kokua/Imprudence Viewers
Kokua/Imprudence Viewers

The second section of the directory is for viewers that do not report crashes or do not have enough users to report a significant number of reports. So, it may move to the first section when enough reports are collected.

The Kokua team has announced the release of Kokua Viewer 3.5.1. The Release Notes are here. The notes are difficult reading. The Kokua Viewer Download is here. I only see Windows and Linux versions.

They also have a development viewer: Kokua Viewer 3.5.2.

 

 

More Info on Imprudence Viewer

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I liked the Imprudence Viewer. But, it is far too behind the times for me to use it. But, that may change.

There is an article on Hypergrid Business by Maria Korolov: Work Resumes on Imprudence Viewer. Maria has news I had yet to hear. Seems a team is taking on updating the old viewer.

They will be avoiding the Havok Code Licensing. Unless a grid is going to implement Havok Physics and add Pathfinding there is no purpose to having the code in an OpenSim viewer. Plus few people even know what the code does or how to use it in Second Life. So, there is little point to adding it.

However, mesh, media on a prim and other parts of the SL tech will be added to the viewer.

It seems they will retain the V1 user interface. For a V3 interface one can use the sister viewer Kokua.

I wish them the best and will be watching how they progress.

More Second Life Oculus Rift

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Hamlet Au has an article titled: Oculus Rift Integration Coming to Second Life, Linden Lab Staff Confirm (Both Officially and Unofficially). I think in that article and in a previous article (ref) he makes several good points. And, it does look like Oculus Rift (OR) is coming to Second Life™. But, Hamlet doesn’t combine it with the LEAP Motion controller I think is needed to go with OR.

You are not going to be able to get a retail OR headset until at least 2014.

The video shows the OR with an omni-directional treadmill. That is NOT the kind of control system I am hopping for… but it might be good for me… but… how would that work in Zindra?

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Second Life News 2013-17 #2

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There was no Deploys thread post this week. Maestro Linden was on vacation and not back. However, the server release notes did update.

Main Channel

This got what I’ll call the Animation Override package. That means the new animation overriding functions are now working grid wide. So, we will likely start to see some AO updates arriving.

Server-Scripting Meeting - Baker's Estate in Background
Server-Scripting Meeting – Baker’s Estate in Background

At the server meeting today the Lindens were hearing no screams. So, we can assume it went well.

There is a crash fix in this package too.

Blue Steel & Le Tigre

These channels got preparatory work for the coming Experience Permissions System. Wow!

They call the changes Experience Keys. Simon is not sure what he can or cannot say about the project. So, we didn’t get much info, may be Thursday at the Beta Server meeting. 

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Second Life Shape Export

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I recently decided to buy Avastar-1 (RC2-782) and see if it could solve some problems I’ve run into with posing the avatar for weight painting. I’ve also had some problems getting custom mesh to fit my avatar. Tight skirts require everything be precise. Things weren’t as precise as I hoped. I was getting frustrated.

Comparing In-world with Avastar and OBJ Export
Comparing In-world with Avastar and OBJ Export

Avastar is an add-on for Blender sold by Machinimatrix.org for US$22. ($27 4/2017) I resisted purchasing it because I wanted to provide tutorials that provide a free path to accomplishing the same things. I’m in the process of updating my tutorial: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial. It’s almost a year old and a few things have changed. 

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Imprudence Viewer 1.4.0.3 Exp 0 Released

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OK, I’m surprised. There is a new experimental release of the Imprudence Viewer out. You can get more information here: Imprudence Blog.

I removed the viewer some time ago. At one time it was my preferred viewer for building in-world. For even longer it was my viewer for OpenSim grids. But, it was slow adopting mesh and AFAIK still does not support mesh.

As far as I can tell this viewer is not Sever Side Appearance baking compatible. So, it is good for from 2 to 8 weeks, until the Lab rolls out SSA.