Firestorm 2.5.1.16671 Beta Viewer Released Review

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Firestorm, often called Phoenix-Firestorm, is the series 2 viewer that will replace the Phoenix viewer. The Firestorm team is endeavoring to make Firestorm a transition viewer that series 1 viewer users can use without too much trouble. Also, new users coming from Linden Lab’s viewer won’t be totally lost. Plus the viewer can be customized to be more series 1 or 2 like.

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Firestorm Viewer Beta

Download and Install

(Download) The Firestorm announcement recommends a clean install of Firestorm and suggests the previous settings file won’t work with the new viewer. Unfortunately the Firestorm uninstall while asking if you want to remove all files, doesn’t. The cache files and folder are deleted. (C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Local\Firestorm\). The settings and logs files are left behind. To remove them one needs to delete the files in: C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Firestorm\.

If you are into saving your chat logs, remember to move them to a safe location before deleting the folder.

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#SL Mesh Update Week 24

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The mesh meetings are getting interest and the agenda is getting lots of items. Today’s meeting had 16 items on the agenda when I checked it.

Mesh Upload Enabling

I posted an article on this a few days ago. See: Second Life Mesh Enablement. I guess this was brought up in the Closed Beta for Mesh. At that time some thought the idea was shot down and dead. Obviously not, it’s back.

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#SL Scripting Update Week 24

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Today Kelly Linden had a meeting in Ambleside, AGNI. It is sort of the Scripting part of Content Creation/Mesh Import/Scripting Group.

LLCastRay()

This is a new feature being added to the Linden Scripting Language (LSL). Many scripters in SL are eagerly awaiting its roll to the main grid. Right now we rez and throw prims to simulate bullets fired from a gun. While effective it is not the most efficient way to simulate bullets.  In laggy sim’s one can literally walk on bullets at the sim edge.

Kelly is hoping to see this feature make it to the main grid soon. Exactly when is unclear. It seems to be wrapped in the Mesh release. His advice is to add a request for the release date information to the Mesh Meeting Agenda. I have to wonder if all the various things wrapped in the mesh release is suggesting the Lindens are planning some big news media splash.

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Honor’s Rant

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There is a gorgeous post (pictures) and an interesting rant in Honor’s blog today. If you don’t regularly look at her posts, Sunday’s is a good one to look at.  Check out: I do not have to Apologize for Using Viewer 2 in Second Life. Something to Notice I’m not writing about Honor when I … Read more

Mesh Costs Explained

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In the SL Wiki we have been given the equation that represents how mesh complexity is converted to Prim Equivalency. The page has changed from time to time and the values used in constants have changed too. Often changing without the wiki page updating.  Frequently a release of a Mesh Project viewer changes all the equivalency values we have been seeing in the viewer. Changes to the simulator software have also changed the values shown in the viewer. Several have been guessing at what the Lindens are actually trying to achieve with these changes. Speculation on what the Lindens will do and why is ranging from hopeful to ridiculous. Now Runitai Linden has explained the Linden goals.

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Mesh Equivalents

The Fallacy

When the Linden’s used the worlds ‘Prim Equivalency’ the stage was set for residents to start comparing prims and sculpties to mesh. The Lindens may have even been thinking of mesh as a prim type. We know that the first mesh we saw in open beta was very sculpty like. The Build Floater even had a mesh asset in the same place as a sculpty has a place for (sculpty map window) the sculpty map.

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#SL Chat Update

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You probably remember that on the first of the month I posted Second Life Chat Load Test. That test was carried out last week. It was hoped we would see some of the numbers this week. That didn’t happen but we did get some of the story from Oskar Linden in the Beta Server Group meeting. I also posted #SL Server Follow Up Week 23, which has a section on chat. That article explains the inefficiencies in group chat.

The Test

Three regions were involved. One running the main grid server-trunk version (Oatmeal ) and the other two running the a test version with improved chat software. Also, the Utility Servers received new software weeks prior to the test. Nobody told me. But, Oskar just officially announced it here: UTIL hosts updated with Group Chat fixes.  The test was pretty well covered in blogs, forum, and group notices. The turnout was good and the Lindens collected lots of good stuff… data. Oskar Linden said, “It was a huge success from a QA POV.”

The main things being tested were backward compatibility – old grid software to new grid software, multi-region chats, and large in region group chats.

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