A new release of the Dolphin 3 Viewer is out: 3.3.3 (23731). This one seems to be mostly small bug fixes. The announcement on the release lists these:

• The avatar offset reset button in the status panel is now properly hidden in mouse look.
• A new setting in Preferences -> Dolphin Viewer 3 -> UI that controls what the Dolphin does when a scripted object sends you several menu popups at the same time.
• A new reset button in the extended build options floater, which resets the pivot offset options so that the coordinate origin is back in the center of the object again. My wife is happy about this one.
• A fix for how fading music in and out behaves when you teleport within the same parcel.
• A fix for the bug that prohibits the mouse cursor from switching back to the normal arrow shape when hovering over certain UI elements.

Download and Experience

All seems very typical and nothing out of the ordinary.

I find the viewer gives me about the same performance as the Linden Lab® Development Viewer, 10 to 15 FPS in my Core2 Quad w/ASUS GTX560Ti.

The Viewer’s Fast Timers show it is spending 62ms rendering a frame. My CPU cores are run about 25% and the 560 about 15 to 45% load. There are almost no page faults. So, I don’t see a hardware bottle neck. Viewers using the latest Linden Lab® code are just slow. Finding a fix is like questing for the BIG ‘O’.

Dolphin has another release out. Lance says this one come quickly after the 27000 version because 27000 was a rush release to get a working Merchant Outbox out. This release includes features and fixes from the planned 27000 release that were skipped to get out Merchant Outbox.

Mesh Upload

This version has the Kokua Mesh Uploader. I have yet to try Kokua’s and Dolphin’s uploaders. I don’t know if they have the ability to create the convex hull when asked to create the physics layer. In Linden Viewers the task is handled by a feature in the Havok physics engine, a proprietary package. On my next trip to ADITI I may try out Dolphin’s and see.

I tend to make my own physics layers to minimize Land Impact. So, whether it does or doesn’t have the ability to do convex hulls isn’t an issue for me.

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Lance describes this release of Dolphin 3 Viewer an important release and I agree. This release has a working Merchant’s Outbox. This version works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Previously even on Windows the Outbox was shaky.

One added feature in Dolphin 3 is the length of the Merchant Outbox’s time out, which has been extended, doubled. This should reduce problems encountered when the Market Place (MP) is running slow.

Image by: purpleslog - Flickr

RLV users will appreciate that the control for RLV Height Offset has been changed to make it easier to use.

Today we got a new release of Dolphin Viewer 3. If you have an ATI/AMD video card, you may want to avoid this release or read carefully before attempting to use the new release.

Texture Compression

A new feature was added to help those with lower end graphics cards, those with less video RAM. Just as textures are compressed for downloading to save on bandwidth and storage space, so too are textures compressed as they are placed into video RAM.

If your card has less then 512mb of video ram, compression will be turned on by default.  If you have an ATI video card, keep it turned off.

Preferences->Graphics->Hardware settings.

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Innula Zenovka post a link on SLUniverse to an Question and Answers page where Oz Linden answered residents questions about the new TPV Policy. Cummere Mayo start the thread here.

See: Questions about new TPV policy. (Questions only please.)

The most controlversal and misunderstood part of the policy is the idea of what is meant by SHARED EXPERIENCE. So, the number one question is: What is meant by shared experience?

The pertinent part of Oz’s answer is:

A shared experience change is one that modifies the definition of the elements that make up the virtual world, or how they behave, in such a way that users on other viewers don’t experience the same virtual reality.

This rule does not affect changes to rendering, user interface, or the controls a viewer offers for interacting with the world.

There is a new version of the Dolphin 3 Viewer out. Dolphin Viewer Download.

This version of the viewer removes Qarl’s Mesh Deformer.  You probably know that Mesh Deformer 0.2 is out and is included in some viewers. Nirans ran into some problems getting it to work. It seem Lance did too. With some question about the new viewer policies it seems Lance decided to leave it out of this version. He plans to put it back in when the Deformer is further refined.

There is a WebKit upgrade in the Linux version… I doubt Linux users follow this blog, so I seldom have much about Linux here. But, this is one of the noted changes in the release annuncement.

One nice feature added to the Dolphin Viewer is the ability to use all of the keys on your keyboard for gestures. If you have made gestures, you know that in the SL Viewer and several others you are restricted in which keys you can assign to a gesture.

A part of the Server/Sim/Scripting User Group meeting was taken up with discussion of the viewer policy changes. It seems some of the changes have been in the works for some time. Now that they are on the verge of being implemented the Lab made the public announcement.

Viewer Identification Tags

Tankmaster Finesmith said, “So, as one of the [Firestorm] TPV devs, we’ve know for a few months now that LL has wanted to brake the viewer tags. Today [Friday] we got word that LL will be braking them next week.”

So, Jessica is right, the viewer type ID tags will be turned off next Tuesday and Wednesday. Presumably the code to do that has already made it through QA process.

Simon Linden was the meeting chairperson or facilitor and I’ll quote him several times so I think this statement is important as a framework. He said, “…I’d like to preemptively explain that I’m a coder working on the server, so I’ve mostly been out of this loop. I’m not a lawyer, from marketing or product, etc. etc.” I suppose that means we need to keep what he says in some sort of perspective.

I saw today that Linden Lab has announced revisions to their Third Party Viewer policy. The Firestorm/Phoenix tema has already posted a reaction. They are also planning to discuss the changes at their next Phoenix Hour, planned for Feb. 28 at 2 PM SLT/PST.

I think Jessica phrases their take on the meaning of the changes in a pessimistic take. However, she may well be right. It is hard to know. You can read her take on the changes on the Firestorm/Phoenix blog. See: New additions to the Third Party Viewer Policy.

You can see the policy change announcement here: Third Party Viewer Policy Changes.

These changes, if intended as Jessica takes them, will be explosive. I see the changes impacting Firestorm and other viewer negatively. Exodus and Nirans viewers may become ineligible to connect to the grid. If so, I’m sure this will create a massive amount of blow back.

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