Category: Viewers

Update: Drake Arconis has pointed-out an inaccuracy in the original version of this review in relation top the Avatar Hover Height slider and spinner. I’ve now corrected the article to reflect his feedback.

Alchemy released their latest beta viewer on Tuesday, June 16th. Version 3.8.0.35816 is described as “another step in the road to Alchemy’s first major release and includes hundreds of new fixes and improvements over it’s predecessors.”

Quite what all the fixes and improvements are is a little hard to tell without pouring over this and the last release, as the release notes are light on details – assuming the “hundreds” in the description for the release is not hyperbole. Ergo, this review is more a set of highlights for the release.

What we do know is that this beta brings Alchemy right up to date with the Lab’s most recent 3.7.30 code base, and includes the Experience Tools updates (which, as they are at RC status in the official viewer, and there are no known issues with them, are ripe for incorporation in RPVs).

Installation

The viewer comes in Windows 32/64-bit, a Mac universal 32/64 bit and Linux 64-bit flavours via the download page, However, some Windows users may see the following message when trying to run the viewer:

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)

As per the Alchemy release notes, should this happen, please download and install one of the following two files from Microsoft:

• If you are using the 32-bit version of Alchemy:  vcredist_x86.exe
• If you are using the 64-bitersion of Alchemy: vcredist_x64.exe

(The above links will take you to the respective download pages at Microsoft, where you can review the file details prior to downloading.)

Experiences

Alchemy 3.8.0 supports the Lab’s new Experience Keys / Tools. This means that when you visit a location using the Experience Keys capabilities, you will receive complete information on the Experience and the permissions it requires you to give in order to join it, as opposed to the brief summary which is displayed by viewers that do not currently have the Experience Keys code included in them.

In addition, it also means you can review the details of the experiences you have joined, and those to which you may have contributed, through the Experience floaters, accessed via Me > Experiences.

For details on Second Life experiences, please read my early review of the official experiences release candidate viewer (note a more updated review of Experience Keys will be produced when the capability has been formally rolled-out).

Avatar Hover Height

Alchemy 3.8.0 includes the on-the-fly Avatar Hover Height capability from the Lab. However, rather than being a slider / spinner control accessed from the avatar right-click context menu, it has been implemented as a chat command: “/hover”, followed by the amount by which you wish to adjust your avatar’s apparent height. For example, “/hover 0.1” will raise your avatar’s apparent height by 0.1 metres, and “/hover -0.1” will decrease you avatar’s apparent height by the same amount.

Update: As noted in the comment from Drake Arconis, the slider for Avatar Hover Height can be found on the Alchemy Quick Preferences (use the cog at the top right of the screen to display – see above right right or the floater itself).

Continue reading “Alchemy 3.8.0: Experience this, and colour that” →