Day: May 12, 2014

On Sunday May 11th, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 4.6.5.40833. Given this release comes just two months after the 4.6.1 release, it does not have a huge raft of new shiny. What it does offer is a nice package of new features and updates, together with a fair few bug fixes from both the Lab and the Firestorm team.

As always, the complete list of changes, together with attributions, can be found in the release notes, and I refer readers to that document for specifics on all contributors, FIRE JIRA links, etc. The following is intended as an overview of some of the more major / interesting changes, updates and  fixes to be found in the release.

The Before We Begin Notes

• Downloading – a reminder: while the Firestorm download server performed perfectly for the 4.6.1 release, please remember it is the only server handling downloads. So in the unlikely event you encounter delays or a slow download, please be patient / consider re-trying a little later
• Version blocking: Jessica informs me that there are no plans to block any older Firestorm versions following this release
• Installation: as always, a completely clean install of the viewer is recommended.

Lab Updates

This release sees Firestorm reach parity with LL’s 3.7.4 code-base, and add a number of fixes and updates from the Lab, including (but not limited to):

• Vivox 4.6.x updates
• Advanced Lighting Model can no longer be enabled for Mac OSX 10.6.8 as Mac OSX 10.6.8 is no longer supported by Linden lab (The ability to enable ALM on 10.6.8 was removed because it caused rendering glitches when enabled)
• Fix for huge amounts of memory being used & viewer crashing when opening large chat histories from the conversation log
  
• Fix for BUG-5537, introduced as a result of changes made to the avatar_lad.xml for Fitted Mesh. These changes caused a non-rigged mesh attachment object worn on the chest attachment point shape to look fine in the wearer’s view whereas anyone else it would appear as if the wearer’s chest was showing through the clothing item
• Fix for crash when editing certain rigged meshes at high altitude
• Fix for crash when uploading corrupt .DAE file (BUG-4961)
• Fix for BUG-997,terrain texture changes caused by changing texture elevation ranges or terraforming can not be seen until after relog or teleporting out and back to the region
• Fix for a suspected thread race crasher in the FmodEx library.

A Note on Interest List Updates

The recent LL viewer-side interest list updates are not a part of the Firestorm 4.6.5 release. As noted elsewhere in this blog, the interest list code is a non-trivial merge due to the extent of changes included alongside of the core interest list updates. It’ll therefore take a little longer for this work to appear in Firestorm.

Building and Scripting Updates

Firestorm 4.6.5 see the Build options in Preferences revised, with two Build sub-tabs (Build 1 and Build 2) under Preferences > Firestorm.

Build 1 (above) contains the options for setting defaults for all newly created prims (size, settings, texture, permissions and pivot point) and the LSL pre-processor options.

The Build 2 sub-tab contains the six check-boxes (Save Scripts Edited from Inventory to Mono, Save Textures from Inventory to Disk as PNG Instead of TGA by Default, etc, which had been in the previous Build sub-tab). It also contains four new options.

The new options are:

• Limit select distance (meters) – disallows selection of objects beyond the specified selection distance from your avatar
• Limit drag distance (meters) – when enabled, this limits the translation distance of objects in a single operation of the translate tool (metres from start point)
• Constrain rotations to multiples of X degrees, when not using ‘snap to grid’ – all rotations via the rotation tool are constrained to multiples of this unit (degrees)
• Preview animations on own avatar during upload – when enabled, you can preview animations during the upload process on your own avatar instead of on the avatar dummy in the upload window.

Firestorm 4.6.5 also includes the following build related items:

• An option to prevent avatar from turning to selected object when editing (Preferences > Move & View > Firestorm > Turn Avatar Towards a Selected Object)
  
•  A fix so that when previewing an animation for uploading it (in paused mode), moving the track of the slider will now correctly change the displayed frame of the animation.

Communications Updates

There are a number of new options for communications with this release, together with a number of fixes. The new features include:

• An option to allow voice to connect in multiple viewer instances simultaneously (Preferences > Sound and Media > Voice Settings), allowing you to run voice on multiple viewer instances, and without seeing the connection warning pop-up message (shown right)
• An option to hear voice equally from everyone, rather than being dependent upon either avatar position or camera placement. This is a useful addition for meetings, etc., where attendees may be located at difference distances from your avatar / camera position, thus impacting voice quality when they are speaking.
  

• A new option has been added to enable the full profile of an avatar to be opened when clicking on an inspect SLurl (Preferences > Firestorm > General > Open Avatar Profile Directly When Clicking on its Name).

Continue reading “Firestorm 4.6.5: steady as she goes” →