When reviewing the Beta 6 release of Exodus, I missed an issue with Alpha textures. This was reported to the team, who immediately set to work on fixing the problem and taking care of a few other issues. The result is that there is now a new release 12.01.03.1 – Beta 7) available for download.
Specific fixes comprise:
Water no longer renders black (white under AMD hardware) under certain circumstances
Alpha blended fullbright objects no longer render white under certain circumstances
Eyelashe rendering correct so they no longer show as white under certain circumstances
Fullbright on rigged meshes now gamma correct in Gamma Correction
Fixed alphas on fullbright requiring gamma correction
Fixed projected textures not being gamma corrected
Fixed rigged meshes not being gamma corrected properly under most circumstances
Fixed cases when using forward slash in chat played typing animation.
Further, the team have made the following changes / additions:
Changed default inventory icon style to the original icons
Modifications in attempt to clean up the preferences window and remove old UI preferences
Changed maximum shadow quality to 4.0, as requested
Sun/Moon light color is now gamma corrected when gamma correction is enabled
Added “refresh texture” feature from Firestorm Viewer
Added option to see threat indicators in third person
Added more adjustable settings related to glow, ambient occlusion and shadows to the visuals window.
Exodus runs extremely well on my PC, and as there is a new release that fixes a few things, I gave it a quick spin photo-wise at Black Spot. I think you’ll agree, the results are impressive.
Shaders active, no deferred rendering or other effectsWith deferred rendering active – note the local lights from the ships and the quays reflected in the waterWith deferred rendering active, plus high precision options of gamma correction and tone mappingDeferred rendering, high precision actrive and vigette set to .870
Beta 7 ran at 38fps on High at Black Spot, dropping to 11 with deferred active; turning on the high precision options did not further impact performance. I’ll attempt to run my “comparison test” on the release tomorrow.
Last week, Pserendipity Daniels left a comment on comparing Viewer performances which got me thnking. As I said in my reply, coming up with an objective means of comparing the performance of various Viewers is a little difficult, as so much as client-side dependent (hardware) while some is also down to your network connection.
However, I decided to take those Viewers I’ve actively used over the last 12 months (as opposed to reviewed and put to one side), and see what I could come up with by way of a very basic and simple means of comparing Viewer performance that might address Pep’s question without me getting bogged down in anything complex (which would probably go right over my head anyway…).
So, the two tables below represent my findings based on Viewer frame rates – which I appreciate aren’t the only measure of a Viewer’s performance (but they are the one most looked at). There are further notes below the tables on how I set-up and ran my “tests”.
Jan 6th: Tables updated to reflect the fact that Niran’s Viewer has been using the 3.2.6 code base since release 1.01. Also, Nalates Urriah has carried out further analysis on these figures.
370m altitude – click to enlarge
Average ping rate for sim: 167ms (averaged across all eight Viewers)
22m altitude – click to enlarge
Average ping rate for sim: 174ms (averaged across all eight Viewers)
Key
“High” = graphics set to the SL “High” setting (Ultra in the case of Phoenix), shaders ON, all Deferred Rendering options for lighting & shadows and ambient occulsion (or equivs) OFF
Deferred = deferred render ON, but ambient occulsion / shadows OFF
Ambient = deferred render ON, ambient occulsion ON, shadows OFF
Shadows = deferred render ON, ambient occulsion OFF shadows ON
Ambient + Shadows = deferred render on, but ambient occulsion / shadows ON
Numbers in brackets refer to the official Viewer release I believe each TPV is based upon.
Test Environment
To try and give as level a playing field as possible for the tests, I attempted to create a “test environment”, namely:
Tests were run after a completely clean reinstall of the listed Viewers (original installation and all associated files / folders uninstalled / deleted)
All Viewers were configured alongside my nVidia Control Panel in accordance with this tutorial from the Shopping Cart Disco blog (with thanks to Innula Zenovka for pointing it out)
All other major graphics and network settings within the Viewers were set to the same criteria (e.g. Draw Distance set to 300m; network bandwidth set to 1500kbps, etc.)
Where possible (and with the exception of Firestorm and Phoenix) the UI was set-up the same: same buttons, same locations, and not other floaters / panels were open, and any group chat sessions active on logging-in were terminated
The same avatar with the same attachments was used with each test (with a Draw Weight of 112,986), with the same camera defaults
I used the same regions for all Viewers tested, each with 4 other avatars in the regions during the tests. One region was a skymall shopping area, the other a residential sim at ground level (which actually had the same 4 other avatars present in it for all tests!)
The same test was used for each case: Teleport to an arrival point; allow rez time, then walk a set route for around 3 minutes, monitoring fps rates
Recorded frame rates are based on a roughly-calculated average, rounded up or down to the nearest whole number, as appropriate.
Hardware and network connection
The hardware used for the tests comprise my usual PC and nework connection:
Windows 7 32-bit with SP1; Intel Q6600 CPU 2.4Ghz; 3Gb RAM; ASUS motherboard (no idea of the model); nVidia Ge9800GT with 1Gb on-board RAM (driver: 8.17.12.8562 15-10-2011); Viewers running on 320Gb SATA drive @ 7200rpm
Netgear DGN2200 (wireless between PC and router)
Internet connection averaging a ping of 43ms to the preferred test server, with a download speed of 9.55Mbps and 1.02Mbps upload (speedtest verified).
Notes
I don’t pretend that either the methodology or the results are particularly scientific, and underline that they are at best indicative – and even that’s strongly caveated
Frame rates varied somewhat from those recorded in my reviews (obtained using a basic alt avatar & on a variety of sims)
On my home sim, when alone, SL 3.2.6, Exodus and Milkshake all exceed 60fps in “High” mode at altitudes above 300m; on the ground all achieve rates in the high 40s
Niran’s Viewer has achieved higher rates in Beta then with release 1.03, which Niran notes as being a “test” release. Unfortunately, the 1.02 release will not run on my PC at all, so I’ve been unable to test it
SL 3.2.6, Exodus, Milkshake and Niran’s all demonstrate considerably faster sculptie rendering than the other Viewers on my PC (sculpties rarely initially rez as a sphere or disk, but simply “pop-out” fully formed a few seconds after other prims).
Obviously, there are other factors that weigh-in on Viewer choice, and it is actually possible to have a worthwhile in-world experience with what might be regarded as low frame rates (I’ve been running Firestorm with shadows enabled since before Christmas, with an average frame rate probably around 12fps (allowing for averages between locations) for example). In the case of Niran’s Viewer and Exodus, the graphics enhancements may well provide more of an incentive for use than straightforward frame rates. Certainly, the quality of rendering on Niran’s Viewer is signifcantly better when optimised than the majority of other Viewers (although it really hits my GPU hard!).
So, in conclusion, you’re free to interpret these results as you see fit; how much value they represent is questionable. As always, individual experences may vary wildly from my own (particularly those of you fortunate enough to run a higher-specfication CPU / GPU combination). However, as a finger-in-the-air reference point for my own reviews, the tables may have value, and I may maintain them…
Again, to be clear: I’m not claiming the test is designed to be either empirical or scientific – please do not take it as such.
Update 4th January 2012: Due to some issues with gamma correction, etc., the Exodus team have issues Beta 7. Core changes are listed here.
The New Year brings with it a new release of the Exodus Viewer. Version 12.01.02.1 (Exodus run a release number system based on the day/month/year of the release, so in this case the release is the first release made on the 2nd January 2012), also known as Beta 6, brings with it a host of new features. Among them:
New graphics functionality
The parametric deformer Alpha
Mesh upload
New FUI options and improved chat bar
V1-style chat console
Ability to save or load position and rotation information of a object into it’s description (something I’ve been wanting for years – so YAY, EXODUS!)
AZERTY keyboard support
The new V3.2 snapshot floater
A range of options imported from other TPVs
RLV/a
Bug fixes.
Exodus is available in Windows, Mac and Linux flavours – this review is based on the Windows release.
Installation
The installer weighs-in at 28Mb – the same size as the official V3.2.6 Viewer. Installation offered no surprises, with the installed Viewer taking-up around 108Mb of disk space – again, the same as the official 3.2.6 Viewer.
On start-up, the Viewer bucks the recent trend in using all, or part of the V3 log-in/splash screen, and instead opts for a clean design with links to the Grid at War Blog, the Exodus Twitter feed and the SL Grid Status page. I’d personally prefer more from the V3 log-in screen, but that’s purely a personal view.
Cool blue splash screen
Once logged-in the Viewer displays the familiar V3.2 Flexible User Interface (FUI), and as Cilla Black might say, there are a lorra, lorra buttons, particularly on the left side of the screen – which we’ll get to in a moment.
Other than the buttons, the UI offers little in the way of major surprises on first looks, presenting pretty much the standard Menu bar, Navigation / Favourites bars layout. Your region co-ordinates are included in the Navigation Bars – which is not to say things haven’t changed. Unlike recent Viewers using the 3.2 code, the Destination Guide isn’t opened by default in Exodus.
Menus
Popular menu options in yellow
The menus offer some nice nips-and-tucks: those options that are Exodus-specific / rated to combat use / are popular options are coloured yellow, immediately drawing the eye to them. Where these options are toggle on/off, toggling them on will cause both the familiar tick to appear alongside them and the item colour to revert to white, a nice touch to prevent visual distractions with items you don’t want to reset.
There are a couple of nice additional touches in the Advanced menu – double-click teleport is included as an option, and camera constraints are disabled by default.
The Me menu includes an additional option to access Exodus’ dedicated Preferences. In earlier releases, these could be found in a Sidebar panel (Exodus having been released just before Rodvik gave word of the coming new FUI), and are now displayed in a dedicated floater panel, accessed wither through Me or via CTRL-SHIFT-P.
The Build menu has a nice addition: you can select an object or linkset and use the BUILD->SCRIPTS->REMOVE SCRIPTS option to remove all scripts from the object / root prim of the object.
Buttons Galore
Exodus, being feature-rich even before the FUI appeared, has a lot of buttons in order to cater for the wide range of options / dedicated functions it contains. With this release, it becomes the Viewer with the most buttons displayed by default on starting-up. These are:
The Customise Toolbar floater reveals further options, including Exodus’ Mini-radar, Mini-statistics, Statistics, and Visuals buttons.
Button options
This is a very comprehensive set of buttons; however, some might find the similarity between some of the icons – the Map and Raid Advisor or the AO and Move, for example (when only using icons) to be initially a tad confusing, leaving them reliant on tool tips until familiarity kicks-in.
Button Placement and Labels
Exodus draws on Niran’s Viewer, in that buttons can be located to the left, right, bottom and top of the screen, and introduces additional display options (left). The FUI has been critique by people who don’t like icons, it’s been critique be people who like icons; it’s been critiqued by those that don’t like icons and text….
So Exodus now gives you the best of all worlds – display your buttons as icons only; reduce the size of the buttons if you find them too big; display your buttons with text and icons or with text labels only. However, note that with standard V3.2 FUI functionality, buttons placed on the left and right sides of the screen automatically default to icons only (regardless of setting), and so text options are limited to the buttons placed at the top / bottom of the screen.
AO Button
Among the buttons there are a couple worthy of additional mention. The first of these is the AO button. Initial solutions for including the AO in the FUI have been to provide two buttons – one for AO settings, one for turning them on / off. Exodus has a single button, with a smaller integral button in the top right corner. Click the main part of the button to access AO settings, click on the inset button to turn your AO on (inset button turns blue, as per the screen capture here), click it again to turn the AO off. Quite simply the most elegant solution to client-side AO integration into the FUI I’ve yet seen.
Redraw
Exodus does not have a texture refresh option, as is starting to appear in other TPVs, but it does have a Redraw button, which will temporarily drop your draw distance to zero, before resetting it to your default, forcing the Viewer to re-draw everything and re-render all that is in line-of-slight. This can actually be alarming when it first happens, as your in-world view can clear of all detail (see below) for a few seconds before everything re-renders.
Where did everything go? Redrawing your view
If this happens to you, don’t panic, everything will reappear. I can’t say how effective this is for sorting out unloaded / rendered textures, as Exodus has rendered everything so fast for me fast and perfectly.
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.
Mesh uploads using Nicky Dasmijn’s code
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.
Niran’s: new loading screens
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).
Milkshake is the new Viewer from Cinder Roxley, who originally provided the Frontier Viewer. Unlike Frontier, which was a V1 TPV, Milkshake is a V3.2-based Viewer, and offers some very interesting options and additions.
Commenting on the switch, Cinder informed me, “[The] Snowstorm codebases allow much more flexibility to a developer. So it’s a lot more fun to hack on than antique snowglobe.”
The Viewer is currently only available for Windows, and this review covers release 3.2.6(2).
Installation
The installer is pretty compact compared to some Viewers: just 26Mb in size (although the latest 3.2. Development Viewer installer is only 28Mb), and the Viewer requires just 99Mb of disk space, once installed.
Logging-in reveals a little of Cinder’s sense of humour: forget the MotD, it’s the by-lines as the Viewer loads and connects to the servers that raise a smile. It’s certainly the first time I’ve been told to buckle my seatbelt when connecting to SL – although there have been times in the past when I’ve metaphorically done so!
Milkshake: raising a smile on logging-in
There’s also a little message related to “dressing your avatar” – is this a slight pause in the log-in process to ensure avatar textures get to download before the in-world view loads? If so, nice touch!
Once running, the UI resembles the standard V3.2 layout; the skin is roughly the same dark tone, but the buttons have a nice green tint to them that makes them look a little less “flat” than those of the official Viewer. The Navigation Bar also includes your location’s co-ordinates by default and incorporates an ABOUT LAND button alongside the HOME button. The menu bar includes an Avatar Offset slider (to adjust your avatar’s position relative to the ground(or prim)) as well as the Draw Distance slider now found in most V3-based TPVs.
Milkshake UI, default appearance
Button-wise, the default load for Milkshake keeps to the V3.2 standard – buttons to the left and bottom of the screen, with only the HOW TO button absent. Most interestingly, the buttons at the bottom of the screen are slightly offset to the right, providing space where the chat bar can be located, for those accustomed to having it V1-like in the lower left side of the screen. It’s still not ideal as the chat bar placement is a little off – but that’s a fault with the V3.2 code, not Milkshake.
Also, if you like to have labels and icons displayed on your buttons and keep all your buttons at the bottom of the screen and have a lot of buttons available, Milkshake will neatly wrap your buttons over two or more lines in the panel without compromising the space “reserved” for the chat bar. This does compromise the chiclet bar, if displayed at the bottom of your screen, but it is a nice touch.
Multiple buttons and the chat bar
Menus
Useful Tools
Milkshake offers a slightly revised Me menu, which includes an additional Useful Tools option. This provides quick access to a range of popular functions and options (right).
The Communicate, World and Build menus are as presented in V3.2, although World includes the option to revert back to Estate Time on the Sun menu, again in keeping with several other TPVs and providing greater convenience to users.
As Milkshake is based on V3.2, it includes the mesh upload option on the Build menu, which works as expected.
Film
Film menu
An interesting addition to the Viewer is the Film menu, which brings together a range of options that should be of assistance to machinima makers. These include avatar and graphics options, so avoiding the need to jump back and forth around Preferences. Changes made to options in this menu are reflected back in their Preferences, where appropriate.
The Advanced menu includes an option to enable RLV for those that use it (on by default); with Help and Develop showing pretty much the same options as V3.2 (with a couple of Admin options absent from Develop).
Buttons, Buttons, Buttons
Milkshake provides, to date, the most comprehensive set of buttons yet found in a V3.2-based TPV. Some of these appear to have been pulled-in from other TPVs, most appear to be Cinder’s own work.
Buttons galore!
Joining the LL-supplied buttons, we have: the AO buttons and Area Search button, which I assume have been pulled across from Dolphin; About Region (shortcut to Region/Estate floater – handy for Estate Managers / Sim owners); Go Home (teleport to your home location – useful if you don’t use the Navigation Bar), Grid Status (opens the Grid status page in your designated browser); Statistics (opens the Statistics floater), and Translate (opens the Google Translate web page in your designated browser).
It’s a good selection, although I wonder at the effectiveness of the Translated button. I can understand why it is included; I’m just not sure people are going to want to either cut & paste back & forth between a browser page and the Viewer, or have the built-in Viewer open on their in-world view when chatting.
Preferences
Milkshake sees some changes to Preferences; some of which are long overdue with various options now “built-in” to the Viewer and “on” by default). These include:
Flight limit disabled – fly high without the need for either a flight assist system or a bridge mechanism
Mu* poses (use “:” instead of “/me” at the start of emotes) on by default
Region / Chat range radar notifications are on by default
LookAt privacy is enabled by default
Elsewhere in Preferences, Cinder has been hard at work with some interesting tweaks and changes.
General
Has been tidied-up to present just the general settings for the Viewer – items that are tag-specific have been moved as have the typing / WASD options, while the option to run multiple copies of the Viewer has been added (good move; this is all too often buried in other Viewers). Somewhat interestingly, the default language option has been removed.
Graphics
Includes the sub-tabs for Hardware, Rendering, DoF, etc., that can be found in other popular TPVs, but includes some rationalisation of options.
Sound and Media
Presents the V3.2 options with the addition of a checkbox to Display Music Information in Chat. The media filter system currently isn’t implemented, but Cinder informed me that it is very much on her to-do list.
Chat
Chat options
The Chat tab includes the following sub-tabs:
General: include the majority of the “standard” V3 chat options, although the bubble chat option has been removed (does anyone use that?), and two “IM Enhancement” options added: the first will display “is typing” alongside their name in the IM window, the second will prevent your Viewer broadcasting the fact that you are typing to any Viewer
Chat Notifications: presents the chat pop-up check box, together with sliders for setting toast duration times and button flashes
Translate: presents the V3.2 translate options
Spell Check: presents the spell check options
Move and View
Has been overhauled to comprise two sub-tabs, as shown below.
Move / View & Display options
Colours and Tags
This tab combines (and extends) the colour options for the Viewer and includes sub-tabs for name tags (from the General tab) and their colours, and client tag colours.
The Custom UI Colours in the General sub-tab are an adjunct to the use of skins, drawn from the Starlight FUI. Rather than just applying a pre-defined skin, options are included which allow you to re-colour elements of the UI as well (see the screen capture below, and note the button / tab text colours compared to other screen captures in this article).
Colour tab: note the UI colour options (top)
The system isn’t perfect – button labels can be coloured, but not button icons; floater panels can be recoloured, but not the menu bar, Navigation & Favourites bars, etc. However, the approach does allow for an additional degree of customisation.
Privacy & Setup
Provide access to the V3 options found under Privacy, Setup and Advanced, and adds a number of TPV options as well (options to select history logs, etc., to be cleared under Privacy, for example).
Milkshake
As with many TPVs, Milkshake has its own Preferences tab. This comprises four sub-tabs, all of which contain some nice touches:
Milkshake Preferences tabs
The general tab includes fields to set the default SAVE location for snapshots and the ability to pre-define the name of each picture you take (the default being the standard “snapshot”). You can also use a series of short code to add further information to the name: %r will add the region name and %p the parcel, for example
Chat includes a range of useful options (multi-line chat bar, dock the chat bar in the Conversations panel (so it is displayed tabbed alongside IM conversations); arrange tabs in the Conversations panel vertically or horizontally; allow IM tabs in the Conversations panel to be rearranged by dragging them; turn the profile icon displayed in IM tabs on/off (will only affect new IM conversations; conversations already open will be unchanged)
Inventory: includes options to set what a double-click on an attachment or wearable in your inventory will do (either ADD it to anything already worn at the same point / layer or REPLACE what is already being worn at the same point / layer) and other goodies
UI: allows you to set where and how various elements are displayed (e.g. chiclet location, whether profiles are displayed as a floater or as a web profile in Viewer’s browser, etc)
More: a range of other options (show muted avatars as a cloud, Mu* poses (for those who would prefer them off), OOC etc.) – together with a warning they may well be moved elsewhere in future releases.
Debug Options
Milkshake includes a range of debug options, all commencing with “Milkshake”, which allow you to toggle a range of features. These include items that are not currently found within Preferences, such as radar notifications (“MilkshakeRadarMessages”). Note that some of these are global actions (so setting MilkshakeRadarMessages to FALSE will disable all radar notifications, for example).
Other Options
Milkshake includes a lot of recent additions to the TPV world, including:
The ability to right-click on an object / avatar and REFRESH TEXTURES
Right-click on LMs in Notecards to teleport directly to them (no need to open the LM in PLACES and use the TELEPORT button)
Mouselook Zoom is included (go to Mouselook, press and hold the right mouse button and use the mouse wheel to zoom in / out on an object / avatar)
The Map includes the ability to “hide” the Legend
Radar is included, as mentioned above, but is range-limited to 512m, and excludes some of what might be regarded as the more “invasive” options – such as the ability to teleport directly to someone within range
Also as mentioned above, LookAt privacy is enabled by default – your LookAt crosshairs will appear to move no further than a metre or two from in front of your avatar when viewed in any Viewer.
The Inventory panel also grabs a few noteworthy revisions from Catznip:
Right-clicking on an item of clothing in Inventory that is to be worn on the same layer as another item of clothing already being worn, will display an additional WEAR ON option in the menu. This allows you to select whether the additional items is to be worn “under” or “over” the existing layer
For example,suppose you have a jumper and a blouse that are both shirt layers – you can wear the blouse, then right-click on the jumper and use WEAR ON to wear the jumper “over” the blouse
Worn clothing items toggle the WEAR button at the bottom of the panel to TAKE OFF
Similarly, worn attachments toggle the ATTACH button (displayed in place of WEAR) to DETACH.
Performance
On my usual test system, Milkshake produced some surprising results compared to other 3.2-based TPVs I’ve run of late – probably a reflection of it appearing to be built on the latest V3.2 development release (3.2.6). When on my own on a sim, I can comfortably hit an average of 50fps; when at home (at 360-ish metres), this climbs to just over 60fps. Even on a sim with several others, frame rates hold at 38-40fps. With shadows enabled this drops to around an average of 22fps – again faster than I’ve achieved with other TPVs of late.
Opinion
I’ve encountered zero crashes in running the Viewer over that past few releases up to this one. In fact, Milkshake is one of the smoothest-running V3 Viewers I’ve used, and is fast on its way to becoming my Viewer of choice.
There are still elements to be refined / added to the Viewer, and a few more bits and bobs I’d like to see. Autocorrect is, I believe, coming (it was in earlier releases, but has been removed from this one, presumably awaiting a small bug I encountered in testing). The media filters are also on the “TBD” listas mentioned, and I assume additional skins are coming, given there is a Skins tab in Preferences. I’d personally like a couple of Quick Prefs buttons / floaters for things like avatar physics & objects LOD, Windlight settings, etc., and for sound settings (a-la Firestorm), but these aren’t showstoppers for me.
I still find the chat bar within the 3.2 UI cumbersome in terms of its look and how well it can be “fitted” into the bottom of the Viewer window. While not a fault with Milkshake per se, it does put me off 3.2-based Viewers, even with the ability to hide the chat bar when not in use, simply because it is so bloody clunky-looking. It comes across as V3.2’s equivalent of the original Sidebar in Viewer 2.
These niggles aside, Milkshake is, as I said, really growing on me – and is potentially the first Viewer to seriously challenge Firestorm as my Viewer of choice. In fact, it’s very possible that another release or two could very well see me swapping over completely….
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.
Graphics Optimiser
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.
Shadow and DoF settings, all now easily accessed via the Optimiser
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.”
Now you seen them, now you don’t – IM panel buttons
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.
Map: transparent Legend / Find, which can be hidden (click >>), and the re-positioned zoom option (left) – the grey area behind it is actually a region, not the background to the zoom slider
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.
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.
When reviewing the Beta 6 release of Exodus, I missed an issue with Alpha textures. This was reported to the team, who immediately set to work on fixing the problem and taking care of a few other issues. The result is that there is now a new release 12.01.03.1 – Beta 7) available for download.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 