Updates for the week ending: Sunday, May 3rd, 2015
This summary is published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Avatar Layer Limits RC viewer updated to version 3.7.29.301305 on April 28 – (parity with current release viewer) allows users to wear up to 60 wearable layers (jackets, shirts, tattoo, alpha, etc.) in any combination (download and release notes)
Black Dragon updated to version 2.4.2.4 on April 29 – core updates: bug fixes (change log)
Firestorm updated to version version 4.7.1.45325 on May 3rd – core updates: parity with LL 3.2.26 & cherry-picking from 3.7.27 and 3.7.28, many improvements and fixes (release notes, overview of significant changes)
V1-style
Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.12.41, and the Experimental branch to version 1.26.13.10 both on May 2nd (release notes)
Sunday, May 3rd saw the release of Firestorm 4.7.1.45325 Beta. This is another big update which brings Firestorm pretty close to being up-to-date with the Lab’s viewer.
However, it has been given a beta status as there are further important updates coming out of the Lab, such as fixes for AIS v3 attachment issues, the new Viewer-Managed Marketplace functionality, etc. As such, the Firestorm team will be working on a further release, which will be made available once the Lab has made these updates and new functionality generally available through their viewer release channel, and this will count as a “full” release of Firestorm.
Given the sheer number of updates in the release, I do not intend to cover everything here, but rather an overview of some of the more major / interesting changes, updates and fixes to be found in the release. for full details of all changes, and all due credits to contributors, etc., please refer to the official release notes.
As this is a beta release, there will be no blocking of any older releases of Firestorm until after the next “full” release is made.
Lab Updates
The 4.7.1.45325 release brings Firestorm up to parity with the Linden 3.7.26 code base (with some updates from the 3.7.27 and 3.7.28 releases). Given the last release (4.6.9) brought Firestorm to parity with the Lab’s 3.7.8 code base, this means this release includes a significant number of updates direct from the lab, which include, but are not limited to, the following.
Avatar Hover Height
The Lab’s Avatar Hover Height option is included in this release, allowing users to make on-the-fly adjustments to their Avatar’s relative position above the ground / the floor / an object it is sat upon, via a slider or spinner, with a range of +/- 2 metres. The option is accessible via the avatar right-click context menu / the pie menu, which displays the slider / spinner.
Avatar Hover Height allows for on-the-fly adjustments to your avatar’s relative position above the ground, etc.
Avatar Hover Height can be used whether you are standing, sitting, using a poseball, etc. However, note that it is a change to the graphical representation of your avatar – the option does not make any associated change the avatar’s height in terms of platform physics.
Default Permissions
Firestorm 4.7.1 includes the new default permissions panel for setting the initial permissions on created items – objects, uploads, scripts, notecards, gestures and wearables. contributed to the official viewer by Jonathan Yap under STORM-68, the new panel can be opened via Preferences > Firestorm > Build 1 > Default Creation Permissions.
The STORM-68 default creation permissions are now integrated into Firestorm
Other Lab Updates of Note
GPU Benchmarking Feature: in common with the Lab’s viewer, Firestorm no longer uses the GPU table to define your GPU and initially set the viewer’s graphics. Instead, a test is carried out when the viewer is first installed to determine the GPU type and graphics settings are initially set as a result of this test. You can, of course set alter your graphics settings to suit your needs / load your settings for any saved presets you have
Server-side Appearance (SSA) polish / Advanced Inventory System (AIS v3): stability and performance improvements for SSA, including retry logic, removing redundant requests, detecting various appearance stuck conditions; the removal of code related to the old client-side baking framework; appearance bug fixes
HTTP Pipelining and faster inventory fetching: significantly improves the download of data (currently avatar baking information, texture data, and mesh data) to the viewer and improves inventory fetching and loading on logging-in
As HTTP fetching using HTTP is now used exclusively by SL (support for UDP fetching has been removed from the simulators), the option to disable HTTP Inventory has been removed from the Developer menu
Joint offsets in rigged mesh attachment fixes: removes the unpredictability from attaching multiple meshes with joint offsets which meant you could see yourself with different joint positions at different times, and the way you saw yourself might not match up to what others saw. Instead, wearing the same set of meshes should always produce the same joint positions, and the way you see yourself should consistently match the way others will see you. The process for removing attached meshes is also more robust, so you should be able to reliably get your old joint positions back after meshes are removed.
Obtain LSL syntax table from the simulator so that it is always up to date: see STORM-1831
Added glossy reflections for projectors: This feature makes use of the glossiness parameter to calculate the “gloss” of projector reflections – see STORM-2067
Perhaps the most noticeable update in this release is the complete overhaul of the Preferences panel, tabs and sub-tab. Every major tab in Preference has been revised and rationalised, and most of the sub-tabs have been revised / added-to, along with a number of new sub-tabs being added to various tabs.
Firestorm 4.7.1 sees the Preferences panel extensively overhauled, with revised tabs and updated / new sub-tabs, such as the new Mouselook, Teleports and Map & Mini-map tabs under Move & View
The result, while possibly confusing when first discovering a particular option has been moved, is actually a better, more logical set of Preferences tabs and sub-tabs.
Documenting all of them is beyond the scope of a review such as this, and the recommended means for finding options and to gain familiarity with the new layout is to use the Preferences search bar.
SL Go has officially gone. The service ceased functioning on Friday, May 1st, after some considerable speculation on exactly when the service would stop.
As most, if not all, SL Go users are aware, notice that the service – along with OnLive’s other cloud services – would be coming to an end was given early in April, after OnLive decided to sell its portfolio of patents to Sony Computer Entertainment America. Way this came about is explained in a blog post from OnLive’s main investor (and former Chairman), Gary Lauder, and I also covered the reasons in a blog post of my own.
OnLive gave notification that their services had come to an end with a message borrowed from Douglas Adams, seen by users as they attempted to log-in via the OnLive clients
While it has originally be thought that SL Go would be popular as a means of access Second Life from tablets and while on the move in the physical world, it actually turned out that the service gained significant traction among those users accessing Second Life (and OpenSim, with the arrival of Firestorm as a supported viewer within SL Go), from low specification computers and laptop, as it enabled people to enjoy the full graphical richness of Second Life in a manner that would otherwise be beyond the capabilities of their hardware, and with few significant issues.
So what now for those people?
At the moment, the most likely alternative on the horizon is Bright Canopy, which will allow users to access Second Life and OpenSim through a conventional web browser. Again, as many people who have used SL Go know, Bright Canopy is currently undergoing beta testing, and it is hoped that a broader, invitation-only pre-launch testing phases will be starting soon, with a formal launch to follow thereafter.
Like SL Go from OnLive, it is important to recognise that Bright Canopy is not endorsed by Linden Lab, but is effectively a third-party viewer service. As it is also being streamed (via Amazon G2 servers initially), there will obviously be a cost involved in using it, and prices have yet to be confirmed. Also, the service is likely to take time to grow – initially, it will be run using Amazon’s servers in the USA, although the plan is to leverage other data centres as time progresses (Bright Canopy is facilitated by Frame, who already use Amazon’s data centres on both the west and east coasts of the USA, plus Ireland, Australia, Singapore and Japan).
Those interested in learning more about Bright Canopy can sign-up for news on the official launch via the website, and and learn more about the service via the Bright Canopy blog.
In the meantime, and once again – as an SL go user myself, particularly when my main PC was in hospital for an extended period earlier this year, my thanks once again to Dennis, Jeff, Shae, Jersey, Robby and everyone else at OnLive involved in SL Go – including Jane Anderson in the US and Mark Bevan here in the UK – for striving to make it an outstanding service.
In the interests of disclosure, I am involved in providing support to Bright Canopy and in helping to administer the Bright Canopy blog. However, I am not officially involved in the management and operation of the company itself.
Updates for the week ending: Sunday, April 26th, 2015
This summary is published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Avatar Layer Limits RC viewer updated to version 3.7.28.301019 released on April 20 – allows users to wear up to 60 wearable layers (jackets, shirts, tattoo, alpha, etc.) in any combination (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
Importer project viewer updates to version 3.7.28.300878 on April 22 – this viewer uses a modified mesh uploader which can (optionally) improve debug output, perform name-based LOD association, and handle models with many materials, allowing models with more than 8 unique faces to be imported (download and release notes)
Black Dragon updated to version 2.4.2.2 on April 25 – core updates: bug fixes, post effects added to Preferences, chromatic aberration rendering, keybindings (change log)
Kokua updated to version version 3.7.27.35441 on April 23rd – core updates: parity with LL 3.2.27 code base and RLV 2.9.9; fixes and tweaks (release notes)
Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.12.40, the Experimental branch to version 1.26.13.9 and the Legacy branch to 1.26.8.93 all on April 25th (release notes)
On April 23rd, 2015, the Lab updated the de facto official viewer to version 3.7.28.300918, formerly the Tools update Release Candidate viewer.
As regular readers of this blog know from my regular SL project updates, this release is primarily focuses on a change to the tools used to build the viewer (to Visual Studio 2013, Xcode 6.1, and some other tools improvements).
Two important aspects of this update are that:
The Windows version of this viewer will not install on Windows XP systems, regardless of the Service Packs also installed (previous versions of the release viewer would install on Windows XP system which had Service Pack 3 installed)
The Mac version of the viewer will not install on any version of OS X below 10.7.
Note that this is not a deliberate attempt to block XP users or those on older versions of OS X from Second Life; it is purely the result of the Lab using up-to-date tools for building the viewer (and which will yield positive benefits elsewhere. for example, during its time as an RC viewer, the new build version has had a crash rate some 2% lower than than of the official viewer built using the “old” tool chain. There have, however, been some reported issues of Linux users experiencing problems using this version of the viewer.
A further benefit of the tools project is that it offers the Lab and TPVs the opportunity to work with a more common set of viewer building tools due to the removal of some licensing issues. It is therefore more than likely that at least some TPVs will move over to using the new tool chain as well.
This viewer also introduces the updated log-in options at the top of the viewer’s splash screen. The three button approach seen by most users has been replaced with a log-in area with a single button (note that users logging-in to SL for the first time or after a clean install will still see the “first time user” log-in splash screen).
LL viewer log-in updates: as they first appeared after an initial log-in following the 2014 revisions to the log-in / splash screen (top); and as the log-in options are displayed in the updated release viewer (bottom) – click for full size, if required.
UKanDo, Kokua and the Restrained Love Viewer (RLV) have all seen recent updates in April 2015, bringing them up-to-par with the Lab’s 3.7.27 code base, which features the most recent maintenance updates from the Lab. In the case of UKanDo and Kokua, this means that Avatar Hover Height (AHH) is now available in the viewers, while RLV sees a couple of tweaks to AHH.
Core updates to the three viewers are summarised below.
UKanDo Viewer
UKanDo updated to version 3.7.27.28099 on April 16th. As well as incorporating AHH and the maintenance updates from the Lab, this release also brought with it:
Develop > HTTP Inventory now permanently enabled in UKanDo viewer, in line with recent LL server-side updates
An update to RLV release 2.9.8
Complete disabling of the Develop menu option allowing people to turn off HTTP Inventory loading. This is to ensure people do not encounter issues with avatar and / or inventory loading as a result of the Lab removing UDP inventory messaging support for the simulator code – see my notes on this for further information
The addition of a new debug setting, EnvironmentPersistAcrossLogin. When set to True, will to counter MAINT-2477 Feature Request – Sun position override should not persist across logins
The ability to toggle the Paste As Link option in the Inventory right-click context menu on or off, according to your personal preference (Preferences > General > Inventory Show ‘Paste As Link’ Option
A change to allow copy of worm items – So links for worn items can be created
Don’t show inventory item links or folder links in Recent Tab.
Kokua Viewer
Kokua updated to version 3.7.27.35441 on April 23rd. As well as incorporating AHH and the maintenance updates from the Lab, this release also brought with it:
AHH in Kokua’s pie menu can be found under the Appearance … option in the main pie menu
The most recent RLV 2.9.9 updates
Fixes for:
In-world Flash playback issues on Linux – Ticket #333
Fix to top bar Draw Distance slider showing distance – Ticket #338
Upload fee not reflected on menus for OpenSim – Ticket #340
“compile as mono” option does not work – Ticket #342
File -> Upload -> Set Default Upload Permissions does nothing – Ticket #344
Changing the grid-selection option in preferences crashes viewer – Ticket #346
Determine correct webkit libraries that need delivered with the Linux version of the viewer – Ticket #347
Kokua 3.7.26.36845.x86_64 Linux Fails to start – Ticket #348
Chat history compact mode does not convert the Avatar Name in OpenSim – Ticket #351
Issues and feature requests can also be found in the release notes.
RLV Updates
RLV updated to version 2.9.8 on April 8th and then to version 2.9.9 on April 21st. The 2.9.8 release saw the existing avatar height slider in the RLV top bar tied to the Lab’s new Avatar Hover Height functionality, so that using either the top slider or Avatar Hover Height from the Avatar right-context menu will use the same code and result in the same adjustments.
The RLV avatar height slider (top bar) is now tied to the Avatar Hover Height functionality. Notice the top bar operates to 2 decimal places and AHH to 3, so small rounding differences are to be expected when comparing the two
In addition, the 2.9.8 update saw a tweak the viewer so that HTTP Inventory is enabled by default in the viewer, again in line with the Lab’s recent move to deprecate the UDP messaging for inventory loading server-side. As RLV previously had HTTP Inventory disabled by default, this meant RLV users were no longer seeing their own avatars render in-world, and could lead them to experiencing inventory load issues as well (see my nots, linked-to in the UKanDo section above for further information). The release also saw some nips and tucks to RLV functionality.
Version 2.9.9 added a small fix to the linked AHH functionality and incorporates the Lab’s 3.7.27 maintenance release updates, as noted at the top of this article.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 