Category: SL Tech

Viewer “3”: a quick road test

Posted on by Inara Pey

So, yesterday mesh arrived (except for folk on the BlueSteel RC channel, who still appear to be waiting for mesh to be rolled-out), and  – as I predicted in my report on the roll-out, Viewer “3” jumped very quickly from Beta to the main Viewer download channel.

For those hoping Viewer “3” was bringing with it some radical departure from Viewer 2 (and I did actually hear and read speculation from some who had not actually taken a look at the new version while it was in Beta), sorry folks, that was never the aim.

Elevating the Viewer from 2.x to 3.x was never about bringing out a whole new Viewer (or even radically improving what was there already), but simply about marking the arrival of mesh. In fact, other than a muted blog post in the In-World section of the official blog (actually promoted to Featured News as I wrote this article) and a couple of Tweets, it’s actually been the only sign from Linden Lab that mesh has rolled out. While I appreciate (very sincerely) that LL included a link to this very blog in their announcement, I’m nevertheless somewhat baffled at the low-key approach.

So what does “Viewer 3” bring us.

Well, pretty much what Viewer 2.8 had, with some bug fixes and, of course, the inclusion of various mesh features.

Performance-wise, I’ve personally found it to be reasonably comparable to the likes of Firestorm on my main PC. The frame rate for a reasonably busy sim (i.e. more than a handful of avatars) comes in at around 32-37fps. On a sim where I’m just one my own or with one or two others, this bangs up to 45-48fps. It doesn’t rock the way Viewer 2.7 did for me, but these figures give a pretty smooth performance.

With shadows enabled, things aren’t so good. I crash to around 5-8fps with just one or two on the same sim. Any more than that and the frame rate bottoms-out at around 2-3. This is pretty chronic compared to Firestorm with shadows enabled, and a lot worse even than some earlier iterations of Viewer 2.

The usual annoyances remain: lack of location co-ordinates in the navigation bar, overly clunky movement / camera control pop-ups, frustratingly confusing toasties, etc. (although in fairness, all Viewers based on the V2 code have this), absolutely crappy IM / chat windows (please, please, LL, take a leaf out of the Firestorm book), yadda, yadda.

As previously mentioned, the update includes an option to allow region / sim owners to allow / disable mesh on a sim. IMPORTANT UPDATE: please see the end of this article of the latest status of this option.

Region option to allow / disable mesh

The can be found bby clicking on the WORLD menu option, then navigating to PLACE PROFILE -> ESTATE / REGION, as shown above, and then clicking on the REGION tab. The option should be available for  estate managers. However, at present the option still has a bug that means it will fault back to ALLOW on clicking APPLY. Ciaran Laval has raised a JIRA on this: VWR-26727, which has been moved to SH-2341 – please make sure you WATCH it.

When it comes to uploading mesh objects, the option can be found in the BUILD menu, alongside the other upload options.

Mesh upload options

A couple of things to bear in mind here:

  • You’ll have to have completed the Mesh Upload Status tutorial and have Payment Information On File to upload mesh objects
  • It would appear that if the land is set to a Group with object entry / rezzing is restricted to that group, you may find the mesh upload option is not displayed unless you are a member of that Group (this was certainly my experience, testing on both my own land and a sim belonging to a friend whose Group I’m not a member of).

I ran a couple of upload tests without incident (although the meshes were not that complicated, and I didn’t play with the defaults that much, as they’d already been optimised for SL). I gather others have found problems.

Other than this, there is little more to say about Viewer “3”. Others have experienced crash and frame rate issues, but in using it for some 3 hours, with plenty of teleports, etc., I didn’t encounter any technical issues. usability issues, yes; but not technical. Again, the official Viewer, in whatever version number it sits under, has a long, long way to go before it reaches the level of convenient use offered by the likes of Firestorm – at least where the non-mesh aspects are concerned.

Update 25th August, 2011

In a comment on the revised JIRA, Charlar Linden states:

Charlar Linden updated SH-2341:Status: Expected Behavior  (was: Open)   Resolution: Not Applicable – thanks – this flag would have no effect, and is being removed soon.

So it would appear the option to disable mesh is not intended to be a part of the Viewer.

Mesh: the roll-out

Posted on by Inara Pey

[POSTED 8:22PM PDT Aug 22, 2011] Rolling restarts for regions on the main Second Life server channel will be performed on Tuesday, August 23rd at approximately 5:00am PDT. Please make sure to save all builds and refrain from making purchases during this time.

Mesh: transformative? (w/thanks for Claudia222 Jewell)

With this simple notice, mesh commenced its roll-out to the remaining portion of the Main gird that has yet to see it (approximately 70%), as per the server release notes.So, assuming all goes well, the entire Main grid will be mesh enabled from today.

This isn’t the end of the mesh project, but really the beginning; thing’s are going to suddenly change overnight – it’s going to take time for mesh to make its presence felt, and as Linden Lab themselves admit, there will be further updates, revisions and improvements ahead.

As a result of this, we can doubtless expect the Beta “Viewer 3” to go to full release status shortly (if not today as well), which brings with it mesh support with some added features. Please see the update at the end of this article.

For those wishing to see mesh, issues still remain: the code for rendering mesh objects has yet to be incorporated into a number of third-party 2.x Viewers, and it unclear as to whether the code can be backported into the 1.x code.

In the meantime – a video from rockerfaerie featuring some of Claudia222 Jewell’s remarkable mesh art.

Updates

At 1300 SLT Nyx Linden confirmed the following:

  • All channels of the Main grid now support mesh except the BlueSteel RC channel (which one assumes will get mesh during the RC channel restarts on Wednesday 24th August)
  • The Default official Viewer is now Viewer 3 (currently 3.0.0.238864)

More on Mesh

Update 25th August

The “additional feature” referred to in this article was the ability to disable mesh rendering in a region. However, in commenting on a JIRA raised in relation to the capability, Charlar Linden stated:

Charlar Linden updated SH-2341:Status: Expected Behavior  (was: Open)   Resolution: Not Applicable – thanks – this flag would have no effect, and is being removed soon.

So it would appear the option to disable mesh is not intended to be a part of the Viewer.

Mesh/Live Volunteer programme ends

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has closed the Mesh/Live Volunteer programme and applications from private full sim owners to join the programme will no longer be accepted.

This can be taken as a further sign that the mesh roll-out is progressing, and according to Charlie Linden some 30% of the Main grid is now mesh-enabled, including both the Magnum and Le Tigre Release Candidate channels (Le Tigre was prepped for mesh last week, and the initial mesh project roll-out occurred on the 10th August).

The public mesh sandbox region (SLurl) is still available for use, which includes two adult-rated sims as well as the G-rated sims.

For those wishing to se mesh on the Main grid, or have a play, the “Viewer 3.0.0″ Beta candidate with mesh support can be downloaded here.

With thanks to Opensource Obscure

Mesh on the Main grid – update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Alongside the release of the Beta of “Viewer 3.0“, Linden Lab have confirmed that the following main grid regions are now all mesh-enabled:

  • All regions assigned to the Secondlife RC Mesh channel (presumably those sim that have, to date, been a part of the Mesh/Live Volunteer programme
  • All regions on the Magnum RC channel.

So, if you’re on the Magnum RC channel, want to play with mesh but haven’t been able to – now you can, subject to meeting the upload requirements (having Payment Information On File and completing the upload status tutorial/questionnaire) and possibly the OK from your sim owner.

The “Viewer 3.0.0” Beta candidate with mesh support can be downloaded here.

Get set for Viewer 3.0

Posted on by Inara Pey

It appears that Viewer 3.0 is about to arrive on our doorsteps.

Now, before you all start jumping up and down, it’s not another new version of the Viewer – well, not exactly – nor is it in any way an admission that Viewer 2 has “failed”.

Rather, it is all part of the arrival of mesh across the Main grid and not indicative of any major overhaul of the Viewer.

Opensource Obscure was the first to notice the change, and his digging got the following comment from Oz Linden, “the transition to the version number of 3 points to support the introduction of ‘import of 3D models’” (i.e. mesh).

Interestingly, the version number is on the latest development Viewer (3.0.1 (238085), dated 9th August) which does not support mesh; whereas the latest mesh project Viewer issued earlier the same day retains a 2.8 release number (2.8.2.(238103)).

Speculation is that the new version number will be officially announced at this weekend’s SLCC, ahead of the planned completion of mesh roll-out, which is due at the end of August.

Addendum

At 14:48 PDT, Linden Lab announced a Beta release of “Viewer 3.0.0” with mesh support was available for download and trial.

Radegast: 3D Rendering progresses

Posted on by Inara Pey

The 3D rendering capability I reported on a week ago in Radegast continues to develop.

The rendering window itself has been improved, with the debug panel now OFF by default, giving it a much cleaner appearance. Avatar movement, via the cursor keys (or the movement buttons on the main Radegast window) is smoother, although still not as refined as the Viewer. Right-clicking on scripted-items in the render window now also calls-up any associated menu, or allows you to take direct actions such as sit, take, etc.

Clicking a menu-driven item in the render window displays the associated menu in the main Radegast window

The most eye-catching addition that may be coming, however, is the ability for water reflections to be rendered, as shown in the video below from the Radegast team.

Now, I have to confess, I’ve downloaded the most recent nightly build, and couldn’t get the water reflections to work. This might be simply because the code to do so isn’t as yet in the latest build – I have no idea; but that doesn’t make the video above any less impressive.

There are a few issues around camera movement that could be refined or improved: holding CTRL and moving the mouse to the right – and seeing the camera move to the LEFT relative to its on-screen position, for example, can be a little confusing. But again, this rendering option is still experimental, so there is every chance that if things like this can be refined, they probably will be.

Overall, it’s fascinating to watch these developments within Radegast, and kudos to the team for the progress made so far.