Category: Outdated and Discontinued

Update: version 1.11 with an out-of-memory crash fix is now available. If you have downloaded 1.10 and are experiencing crash issues (memory use exceeding 1.25Gb), you might want to download this version.

Niran’s Viewer is one of the two most capable graphics Viewers in current development – easily standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Exodus (which has in some respects gained far more attention of late).

Niran’s hasn’t been without problems – simply because it is so advanced (possibly too advanced for some people’s tastes). While NiranV Dean has worked hard to present a range of graphics controls that are more intuitive (using settings such as “low”, “medium” and “high”, rather than numeric sliders, etc.), it is possible that people have been so used to the slider mechanisms may find his newer approach a little more confusing.

I’ve tried to follow Niran’s  development from Beta onwards because, well, I like it. Rather a lot. Things for me went a bit squiffy with release 1.02, which simply refused to work with my PC (or my PC with it, not sure which way around it was), and some of those issues carried over into 1.03.

Release 1.10 redresses all of that with a nice set of nips, tucks and updates that have so far given me a very pleasant ride and which again point to why those with a bent for photography, etc., in SL should take Niran’s Viewer for a spin. It is based on the very latest LL 3.2.7 (Project) code base, and includes all the latest Shining fixes to boot!

Graphics and Rendering

On the graphics / rendering front, Niran has re-worked the original sky glow defaults from V3 into the Windlight preset for the Viewer for those that find the Niran’s Viewer glow defaults a little too bright. You can find them under the Sky settings, with names such as “Realistic” should you wish to swap over to them in preference to the Viewer’s own glow defaults.

Within the Graphics panel itself, NiranV has been fixing various bits and pieces – adding tooltips, etc., and also, God bless him, adding default (*) indicators alongside options so that it’s relatively easy to get back to a starting point when making adjustments. This I’ll treasure him for, as I’m no graphics expert, and have confused myself once or twice playing with settings on a number of Viewers.

UI

The most obvious difference in the UI for those who are familiar with Niran’s Viewer & who do a clean install), is that there are only 7 buttons on-screen by default, and these are both icons-only and moved to the left / right sides, potentially maximising the in-world view.

Visiting PREFERENCES->VIEWER->UI reveals the alpha / beta options have been expanded, with the ability to enable / disable the mesh parametric deformer alpha being added to the other options.

On the parametric deformer, NiranV notes, “For all you that wanted to disable it, you will now find the option to do so … untick it and re-wear any mesh or the whole mesh AV to make it update and look normal, the reason why it doesn’t auto update like in Exodus is easy, Qarl’s code adds an update to mesh nearly every second or less , this results in flickering mesh shadows and totally freaking Meshes on other people , i took that one out , contra is that you have to “refresh” it then , but it definitely works better :)”

I took a quick plunge into the Beta grid to give the Direct Delivery options a go, now that the public Beta is underway.

Enabling the Received Items and the Merchant’s Outbox will add both to your Inventory panel (in difference to the official Project Viewer, which has the Merchant’s Outbox as a separate panel).

In testing the options, I found the Received Items side of things worked as expected. However, I was unable to test uploading goods, as the Merchant Outbox section refused to let me drop anything into it, which I’ve reported to NiranV.

This issue aside, I find NiranV’s approach to Direct Delivery more intuitive than LL’s – having the Merchant Outbox included in the Inventory panel means one doesn’t need to have yet another panel open and floating around, and dragging-and-dropping will be much easier. Other TPV developers, take note.

As a slight aside, don’t be confused if you see “Niran’s Viewer” popping up in place of “Second Life” (such as in the Merchant’s Outbox, which refers to “Niran’s Viewer Marketplace” rather than “Second Life Marketplace”) – this is the result of an accidental global replace of “Second Life” with “Niran’s Viewer” by one of NiranV’s colleagues on the project…

Opinion

Small, from an end-user perspective, but very welcome and tidy changes to the Viewer that do much to encourage its more widespread use. Performance-wise on my usual machine, and on my usual sims (the usual caveats in place), it ran well – better than 1.02, giving me performance on a par with Exodus with or without shadows enabled, and a very smooth run. There are still some things I feel are missing from the Viewer – but these are personal choices, and they won’t stop me from using this Viewer alongside Exodus in my fledgling attempts at SL photography.

If you’re into photography and / or machinima, then Niran’s is definitely a Viewer to take a look at.

Links

• Niran’s Blog
• Windows Download
• Source code location

NiranV has released two further updates to Niran’s Viewer for the New Year.

Version 1.02

Version 1.02 brings with it enhancements to shadow rendering – what NiranV calls multi-level shadowing, which sees alpha objects casting shadows (something I’ve actually recently noticed in V3.2.6 and specifically Milkshake, wherein the decorative glass panels I used a a house build now render shadows…).

The version also incorporates Nicky Dasmijn’s mesh uploader code, making Niran’s the second TPV to adopt her code.There are also a number of bugfixes and tweaks that address minor issues withing the Viewer.

Another noticable change is with the loading screens – gone is a snapshot of your last in-world view together with the MotD and progress bar. Instead, there’s a mandelbrot-esque design in the lower left corner, images from NiranV’s in-world explorations and assorted hints and tip displayed with the load progress bar. All-in-all a refreshing change.

Version 1.03

An experimental release, version 1.03 brings with it the parametric deformer alpha release, so those who wish to try-out the deformer (particularly clothing designers) can do so. Note that it might not work in all instances; a lot depends on how the mesh is weighted.

Given it is experimental, NiranV informaed me that the code would likely be removed from the next release of the Viewer (which currently does not have a time frame).

Links

• NiranV’s blog
• Release 1.02 download
• Release 1.03 download

Note: Sometimes running in-depth reviews of Beta Viewers is a risky business, as you can get hoist by your own petard. Niran’s is a good example of this: while I was plunging into the Beta, NiranV was hard at work getting the Viewer ready as release version 1.0 as a Christmas present to SL. So here’s an update drawing on my original Beta review.

In discussing this Viewer, one of the things NiranV asked me to emphasise is that it shouldn’t be regarded as a fork from Kirstens – not so much because the latter has been discontinued, but because so much work has gone into this Viewer which NiranV has worked on from scratch that it stands as a Viewer in its own right.

Note also that this review is based on the 1.01 patch release.

Installation and Appearance

The Installation EXE for Windows is 33.5Mb in size and currently is still a WinRar executable, rather than a full installer – so still no desktop shortcuts, but NiranV notes that this might change in the future. Logging-in reveals the first major change: gone is the blue UI, which several have commented on. As Niran puts it, the blue skin, “Has been stashed into the corner of the room and now Darkness is my default skin, which is aimed at giving a whole new era of Second Life skins.”

The skin certainly is dark, and the blue Azure skin is still available through Preferences for those that like it. The move makes the Viewer look more V3-like,  although it is noticeably darker than the default V3 UI skin, and the yellow / gold elements and an additional depth that is lacking in the V3 skin. Sadly, Darkness does lose the ability to set a level of transparency on the menu bars by stripping away texture layers. There is also a further skin – Ashen Blood (no preview within PREFERENCES->SKINS, but you can activate it OK); this adds something of a red tint to NiranV’s Darkness skin.

Beyond this, the initial appearance on logging-in remains unchanged, with the same default button options displayed to the left, right and top of the screen, with the bottom of the screen remaining clear.

I have to admit, I’m actually less a fan of the top button area than some; and my first act on using this Viewer is always to move the top buttons to the bottom of the screen. Doing so not only puts the buttons in a more familiar location – if the top button bar is empty, it is possible to align items such as the camera controls directly against the bottom edge of the Navigation Bar, rather than having something of a gap between the two. However, in terms of giving people wider choice in button placement, it’s a good addition. Prior to the release, NiranV and I discussed the Viewer, and I asked about making the buttons so they could be aligned to the left/right (for the top & bottom bars), or top / bottom (for the left & right bars), and while NiranV said this could be done, no commitment was given to including it.

Graphics Preferences Changes

One of the key changes between this release and the Beta previously reviewed is with Graphics Preferences. In the Beta, there were two Graphics tabs, which presented the same information in different formats. The GRAPHICS 2 tab has now gone, to be replaced by ADVANCED GRAPHICS, the latter having previously been in a snazzy “slider” within the original GRAPHICS tab.

In my original piece I commented on the use of drop-downs that use terms such as “none”, “less”, “medium”, “more” and “many” when selecting options, commenting that I’m not sure it entirely works. However, NiranV took time out to explain the reasoning behind this move: “The whole new Layout was born when so many people asked in Kirsten´s Group, what does ‘Object Quality 10.0 mean? What happens when I set X Quality to X.X?’ People couldn’t really understand those values. So I came with a better idea, changing the layout to something a lot of games use: simple drop-downs which give you easier to understand options. I mean, everyone can think of what Low, Med , High mean, and that High is obviously higher/better than Medium.” Which is a fair point.

Within GRAPHICS, there is a new button – OPEN OPTIMIZER.This opens a very snazzy and dynamic panel, that NiranV described to me as, “A small Graphics floater that has all really important features packed into a small, fast and nice looking window allowing easier on-screen changes to graphics without FPS loss due to [having] Preferences open.”  It’s a nicely executed idea.

The Optimiser has five button displayed on it, clicking on any one of which will cause a range of options to slide out below the Optimiser bar, while also blanking the remaining buttons to avoid confusion as to which is being used.

Clicking on the option again will close it, and display all the buttons on the panel once more. This is actually a very neat approach to settings people tend to tweak a lot – and the design of the floater means that it can be left “on” by default without taking up too much screen display.

Among the options within the Optimiser lay a comprehensive set of controls relating to Depth of Field and Shadow rendering that should bring joy to th hearts of those who have previously used Kirsten’s Viewer for their photography and machinima.

All-in-all, it’s a great approach to fast and easy access to core features, and one I’m sure many would like to see replicated in some degree in other Viewers. Again, if you don’t use the top button bar, the Optimiser can be pushed up neatly to the top of the screen, close to the Navigation Bar, where to doesn’t really hinder the in-world view and provides ready access to core graphics functions.

As NiranV explains in the blog post accompanying the release, a huge amount of work has gone into the graphics side of the Viewer, and those on suitable graphics cards should notice the difference between this and the previous versions. Sadly for me and my Ge9800 GT, little discernible improvement was had; shadows render fine, but the overall performance falls through the floor into the living room in terms of FPS, so I cannot give an accurate testimony as to the overall improvements.

FPS issues aside, rendering on the Viewer remains blisteringly fast – I still can’t get over arriving in my garden to find the sculpted trees rezzing fully formed as rapidly as just about everything else, rather than having to look at a series of blobs and vaned spheres while the Viewer works out what to do with them…

Animated Trees

A while ago, Linden Lab started turning off “classic” elements of Second Life from the newer Viewer code. Two items so affected are the old “classic” clouds at around 300m altitude, which no longer render, and “animated” trees and plants (those tree and plants that would sway in an apparent breeze. I assume both were deactivated to help with performance (although both can still be seen with V1-based Viewers).

I find the removal of both no great loss to SL as a whole, but for those that do like to see the tree animation, then NiranV has included an on/off toggle within the GRAPHICS tab of Preferences, which will re-enable the animated function for Linden trees.

IM Panel Revisions

Niran has given the IM panel a substantial overhaul, and come up with a panel that is quite possibly the best in its class. By default, IMs appear in separate windows, but as with other Viewers, they can be nested into the same floater.

Some of the changes to the new IM window are immediately apparent: the range of very clear, easy-to understand icons down the right side. However, if you’d like more space to display IM conversations without spending the window, and don’t want to use the buttons – click the vertical bar between the text display and the buttons – the buttons will slide neatly away to the right. It’s a very slick and tidy approach, which NiranV describes thus, “My goal is to bring a completely new experience in Second Life Viewers, different from everything you’ve seen; take good things and make them even better  or completely redo them. The overhauled IM Panel is only one of those things.”

Map Updates

Another of “those things” that have been improved is the World Map. A slide function has been included that allows the Legend / Find section of the map to be hidden, providing a larger display area when Legend / Find aren’t required. Additionally, Legend / Find are semi-transparent, again allowing for more of the map to be visible even when both are open. Finally, and in a wise move, the Zoom function has been moved to the left of the map itself, so it is still possible to zoom in / out while keeping Legend / Find closed.

Patch Updates

The 1.01 patch includes a fix for floaters that might open wider than intended on some screen resolutions – I didn’t have this issue myself with the 1.0 release, but if you find some of the floaters looking somewhat on the large size on your screen, you might want to download and install the patch files, which also add some additional touches to the Darkness skin.

Opinion

In discussing the Viewer, NiranV had this to say to me recently, “I strive to create the most advanced graphics/UI Viewer giving the User full control over nearly everything … I like to say ‘SL is only as good as YOU make it’, [and the] same goes for Graphics. I guess its pretty obvious that there is enough stuff to play with for a long time if you look into Preferences and explore the UI.” That this aim has been achieved is evident from seeing the results on-screen – as the following video from NiranV demonstrates:

Certainly, there are some issues with the Viewer that can be experienced, simply because it is so cutting-edge. NiranV has been aware that people have had a few problems, and passed comment to me prior to this release that, “In final release I will also add option to turn graphics back to normal, as I used the new Shiny and SSAO for a long time now, and people already were complaining about up to extreme performance decreases when enabling SSAO. [So] people will be able to set the LL default SSAO again which will increase FPS drastically again but also decrease visual Quality dramatically.” So if you do have performance issues, try flicking back to the LL defaults.

The key thing about this Viewer is the amount of effort that is going into it to present an exceptionally high quality user experience that capitalizes on things like the FUI and some creative thinking on the part of the creator. Had I a system capable of utilising this Viewer to maximum impact, I’ve little doubt it could become my primary Viewer.

With radar (without those functions people might find to be invasive), the option of Pie Menus, the inclusion of Lance Corrimal’s maths functions within the Build menu, RLV/a and a host of other popular TPV features, Niran’s Viewer brings together a lot in a flexible and effective Viewer that pretty much stands in a league of its own.

Recommended.

Links

• NiranV Dean at Blogspot
• Niran’s Viewer sourceforge link (Windows)
• Niran’s Viewer sourceforge link (Linux)

Important: Please note that the LINUX version of the Viewer is maintained by Miguael Liamano, and not NiranV Dean. As such, all support issues / requests should be addressed to Miguael not NiranV Dean.