KirstenLee Viewer S20(43) Released

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KirstenLee has a new release of her viewer out. This one seems to have run up against the lack of support Apple provides for 3D rendering. Users on Mac OS 10.4 and earlier will likely have problems. However the Windows and Linux versions are out. See: Apple Issues… :/

I’m downloading the viewer and will try it out later today.

The release notes show KirstenLee has upgrade the code for Mac OS 10.6. The Depth of Field feature the Lindens are adding as a by-product of fixing Anti-Aliasing has been added with user interface controls for it. The mesh object count has been updated. Some other techie fixes and upgrades.

Still no mesh upload. But, the viewer renders mesh.

Editing Terrain or Raw Files with Photoshop

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Photoshop
Camera Raw Open

I needed to edit a terrain file for one of my regions in OpenSim. Trying to smooth the terrain with the terrain editing tools in viewers just was not working. Whether one is targeting OpenSim or Second Life it is the same process. Photoshop is where the challenge is, getting a terrain.raw  or terrain.r32 file open in Photoshop. This article shares the information I found and avoids a lot of the link rot that has set in on this subject.

Terrain and Camera

When searching Google one quickly realizes there is more than one type of RAW file. RAW files are used for images files created by many scientific applications… and especially digital cameras. When searching for terrain tutorials on Google use the negative term –camera (minus sign/dash and a word) to exclude information about camera raw files.

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Phoenix Viewer 1.5.2.725 Release Review

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Note: This is a ‘unfinished’ article. But it will get you the information I have learned from using this new release. So, far it seems pretty nice.

Install

Version 1.5.2(725) has a slightly different installer than most viewers. It is more like most application installers. The default is to install in the folder Phoenix Viewer. This is the folder previous versions have used. So, it over writes the previous 373 version.

In the release announcement the team warns this viewer is a drastic… significant… change from the previous viewers. They ask everyone link to the announcement so users can be warned to check out the tutorials and manual the team has been building in the wiki. So, for a download visit: http://phoenixviewer.blogspot.com/

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Second Life Viewer 2.4 Beta Released

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Snowstorm
Snowstorm Project

We have a new Beta version out. See the announcement:  Try Out the New Viewer 2.4 Beta, Now Available. Jack Linden posted the news today.

Auto-Updater

This new feature is included in this Beta release. I’ve been watching it coming through Snowstorm this week. It will be interesting to see how well it works… or not. The idea here being that viewer updates will download in background. At your next logon you will be asked if you want to install the upgrade. You have a choice.

This should make the process of updating a viewer much simpler for non-techs and less tedious for power users. 

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Mesh Testers Needed

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Dan Linden has put up a post asking for mesh testers. Help us test Mesh performance

There is a challenge in regard to testing prim equivalency and parcel prim limits. There are some serous tick-you-off gotcha’s evolved in prim limits and mesh equivalents. This is the testing they need help with. So, if you want a parcel on the Preview Grid and are willing to help out with building mesh stuff, sign up.

Hey folks,
we need your help in testing Mesh within real limitations. We want to  get “real world” numbers for render and streaming performance and this  means building content on parcels with restricted size instead of region  size sandboxes.

See the post for how to sign up. Only 64 parcels available. You need to fill them up with meshes.