On May 2nd, I wrote about the return of Kirsten’s Viewer and its return to active duty. In that review I noted that while what goes into a viewer is down to those who maintain it, it would be nice to see Kirsten’s adopt the client-side AO mechanism, as first seen in the Firestorm viewer.
Following that review, KirstenLee’s partner, Dawny Daviau let me know the AO system was being considered and then, just a couple of days later, she Tweeted that the viewer had been updated with the AO code.
Even as an inside joke, I was flattered that KirstenLee had responded so rapidly to both Dawny’s prompting and my comment.
I understand from KirstenLee’s own comments that getting the AO code into the viewer wasn’t easy, what with the UI changes created by EEP – so kudos and thanks got to KirstenLee and Dawny for going ahead and integrating it. Given it did take a little crowbarring, it’s not surprising that the AO floater has a couple of minor of rough edges to it – but these do not prevent it from being used or cannot be easily fixed.
For those unfamiliar with the idea of a client-side AO, it allows the animations from an animation overrider system to run directly from the viewer without the need to wear a resource-gabbing scripted HUD. It takes a little setting-up, but once done, it’s easy to use – and has the further benefit of allowing you to use multiple AOs together without having to worry about swapping HUDS or including different outfit links to different HUDs.
The best place to get information on setting-up and using the client-side AO is via the Firestorm wiki. A couple of points should be noted here:
- When first loaded, the AO floater may not display all of the AOs in its floater (e.g. all your stands might be listed, but none of your walks). If this happens, click the Reload button at the bottom of the AO floater to get them to list and run.
- The UI scaling in the floater is a little off in this S23-1387 KV iteration, so it my need to be broadened to correctly display.
Neither of the above points impact the AO’s usability, and in my own tests, I had no issues with setting it up and using it.
Also note that the AO will create a folder called #Kirstens in your invention, which will contain a copy of the AO(s) you have selected for client-side use – do not delete this folder when using the capability!
As a long-time user of client-side AO capabilities (including loading it with more than one AO set), I’m clearly a fan of the capability. I like the freedom it gives, and the fact there’s no need to have screen real estate (however small) taken up by a HUD and, more particularly, the fact that texture RAM and script resources needn’t be taken up by the use of a HUD. So while this might be a “small” update, I think it to be worthwhile and – if you’re trying out Kirsten’s Viewer and haven’t used a viewer-side AO system, this is a good opportunity to try it out.
For those who do use the client-side AO, and might be looking to an alternative to (say) Firestorm for photography, the addition of the AO button and floater offers another reason for giving Kirsten’s Viewer a try out.
My thanks again to KirstenLee for responding to the request from Dawny and I!
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 