On Wednesday, December 13th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.17.70368 of their viewer.
It should be noted that this is not a new release of the viewer, but rather a hotfix for issues found with the client-side animation overrider which caused the withdrawal of the Firestorm 6.6.16 release (November 29th) – see here for more. In addition, the release includes a number of additional updates and fixes.
Given this, the following is not a complete review of the 6.6.17 update, but focuses on the changes within it which were not a part of 6.6.16, together with the important lead-in notes – for a complete list of major and minor updates and credits for those responsible, please refer to the Firestorm 6.6.17 release notes.
Therefore, if you did not update to Firestorm 6.6.16, please release to my overview of that release as well as reading the notes below.
General Notes
Installation
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 6.6.17.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.6.3 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.17’s release, as will version 6.6.16.
Important Additional Notes
End of 32-Bit Windows Support
Linden Lab has recently moved their automated viewer build process to Github Actions (GHA) – see here for more. This will allow Firestorm to produce more timely updates, more in line with LL’s major updates.
However, as the Lab’s new build process does not include the third-party libraries required to build a 32-bit Windows version of the viewer, and Firestorm is not in a position to continue to directly maintain those libraries, Firestorm 6.6.17 will be the last version of Firestorm to provide a 32-bit Windows version.
However, please note that Firestorm 6.6.17 does not support PBR Materials – this will be in the next Firestorm update.
A Note on Inventory Updates
Both Firestorm 6.6.16 and Firestorm 6.6.17 include numerous Inventory updates. some of these see changes in inventory service communications with the viewer, designed to correct a long-standing bug wherein some deleted items became orphaned from the inventory folders and thus invisible.
However, with the fix these “orphaned” items may now be randomly restored to your Lost and Found folder – which may require checking and clearing as a result.
This issue is waiting a fix from Linden Lab – see BUG-234508.
Core Updates in Firestorm 6.6.17
Animation Overrider
Following the release of Firestorm 6.6.16, it was found that the viewer’s client-side Animation Overrider was suffering issues which were affecting a large numbers of users, prompting that version to be withdrawn. Specific fixes to address these problems in this release are:
FIRE-33414 – “Built-in AO destroyed after installing the Firestorm 6.6.16 (70339) Nov 23 2023 19:40:32 (64bit / SSE2)”.
FIRE-33300 – “FS AO doesn’t load animations on login”.
Inventory
FIRE-33322 – “Inventory window randomly jumps to the top”.
Inventory Thumbnail Images should not be displayed uniformly.
An option has been added to disable inventory thumbnail preview images (see: FIRE-33356).
A further option has been added to control the delay before showing the inventory thumbnail preview images (see: FIRE-33285).
New Preferences option for Inventory Preview Images
The issue of Inventory folder names failing to correct update after a rename should now be fixed (see: FIRE-33337 “[BUG-234770] [SL-20682] Misbehaving Folders – can’t rename”.
The issue of tooltips always showing in inventory even though not needed, has been addressed. They should now only show for inventory items with a thumbnail or if it exceeds the width of the window.
Log-in Hang Fix
Firestorm could hang at log-in. The issue was triggered by having the statistics window open from a previous session, causing a cascade of problems, resulting in the viewer hanging.
It has been confirmed that Firestorm 6.6.16.70339 has a bug within the client Animation Override (AO) which is affecting multiple users. Because of this, version 70339 is being withdrawn from the Firestorm download page, and will be replaced once a version with the necessary fixes is available. In the meantime, those affected by the issue (not all Firestorm users necessarily are) should consider rolling back to release 6.6.14 to escape the problems.
On Monday November 27th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.16.70339 of their viewer. This is another release to bring Firestorm up to parity with the more recent releases from Linden Lab as well as adding some new / improved options from the Firestorm team. It is also important for two additional reasons:
It clears a path for Firestorm to move towards a PBR Materials release in line with the Lab’s move to PBR Materials / reflection probes.
It provides a final 32-bit Windows build of the viewer. Going forward, only the 64-bit Windows version will be built and released. See below for more.
This article is not intended to cover every update / change / improvement within the release. These can be found within the Firestorm 6.6.16. release notes, which also provide full credit details for the changes.
This review focuses primarily on the new features included with Firestorm 6.6.16, together with an overview of its parity with Linden Lab’s official viewer code base and and overviews of various updates, improvements and fixes I believe will be of specific interest to Firestorm users in general.
Finally, I have not had time to personally try this release to any great extent, so am not offering any personal feedback on it.
Please note this release is not a Firestorm PBR release. PBR support will be in the next update.
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 6.6.16.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.6.3 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.16’s release.
End of 32-Bit Windows Builds
Linden Lab has recently moved their automated viewer build process to Github Actions (GHA) – see here for more. The positive side of this is that Firestorm is particularly well-placed to leverage this change, reducing their own overhead in maintaining a build process whilst also producing more frequent updates. The negative side, however, is that in making this move, Linden Lab removed all of the code libraries required for building a 32-bit Windows version of the viewer.
This means Firestorm 6.6.16 will be the last Firestorm release to support Windows 32-bit, bringing the windows version into line with the Linux and Mac versions
A Note on Inventory Updates
This viewer includes numerous Inventory updates (see below), some of which see changes to the way in which communications between the inventory service and the viewer re managed. Whilst these changes fix a long-standing bug wherein some deleted items became orphaned from the inventory folders and thus invisible, they also mean that these “orphaned” items will now be restored to your Lost and Found folder. So you might want to check Lost and Found and ensure everything in it is for deletion – or move any returned treasures elsewhere before clearing it.
As this re-creation of old items in Lost and Found can occur randomly, JIRA has been raised with the Lab – see BUG-234508.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.16.70339 is fully merged up to the following recent Linden Lab viewer releases:
Core features – Inventory item preview image; single folder inventory view. See below for a short overview.
Updated Object Profiles: right clicking an inventory item → Properties will display an update profile, which includes the ability to view an associated thumbnail (and create one if there is not one available).
Firestorm users can switch back to the old object profile via Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Use Legacy Object Properties
Notes:
When using the inventory extensions for the first time, the pop-up shown on the right will be displayed.
This version of Firestorm includes and upstream fix from that Lab to suppress false reports of packet loss and log spam noise when visiting GLTF enabled regions on a non-PBR-enabled viewer. See BUG-234550.
Increased limits to the number of Estate Managers and Ban list entries in Estates.
A move to VLC for improved parcel audio playback (streaming audio).
New option: Show Ban Lines On Collision (World → Show) when enabled, will only show ban lines around parcels will only be visible on collision, rather than whenever they are within draw distance.
Inventory Extensions Summary
The Inventory Extension viewer introduced two new features intended to make browsing the contents of your inventory easier. These comprise:
Inventory Item Preview – the ability to include thumbnail images (either your own or supplied by the item’s creator) of items within inventory (clothing, body parts, accessories, attachments). These images are persistently linked to the item / folder (unless intentionally deleted or changed) and displayed whenever the mouse pointer is hovered over the related element.
Single Folder view: the ability to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window.
The Item Preview capability comprises two parts:
The ability to view the included thumbnail images on on mouse-over, as noted above.
A dedicated tool for creating thumbnail images, as shown below, right
Note that thumbnails can also be created via an object’s Properties floater.
Elements from the Inventory Extensions capabilities – view and generating thumbnail images
The Single Folder View allows users to open an Inventory folder within a floater of its own, allowing the contents to be viewed without distraction, with them displayed in in one of three ways:
Gallery view – displaying only the thumbnails of those items in the folder for which thumbnails have been created.
List View – all of the folder’s contents, displayed much as they are seen within the open folder in Inventory.
Combination View – those items with an associated thumbnail will have that thumbnail displayed, those which do not will be listed.
Any folder in Inventory can be opened in this manner by right-clicking on it and selecting Open In New Window from the Inventory Context Menu. Further, the floater displaying the open folder includes:
Search (including filtering options) and navigation controls at the top of the floater.
The same tools for accessing additional Inventory management options at the bottom of the floater as those found in the main Inventory panel, together with and additional trash can icon to which items can be dragged-and-dropped to move them to Trash (or can be clicked on when one or more items are selected to move all of them to Trash).
The Single Folder View (right) as supplied by Linden Lab and incorporated in Firestorm 6.6.16, and the menu option used to access it. Note the floater here is set to display in the combined view, in this case showing the thumbnail image supplied by the item’s creator
Important note: Firestorm has had a “Show in new window” option offering similar (but with lesser functionality). This option remains in the viewer for the present, but may be removed in the future. Unfortunately, the Context Menu option for accessing it is displayed directly above the new Open In New Window option (see image above), and the two should not be confused.
The ability to page back and forth between visited Inventory folders in a manner akin to the page back / forward buttons in a browser, and to move back up the folder tree via a similar button. These can all be found in the top left of Inventory floaters.
Inventory Settings
Firestorm 6.6.16 adds a new option called Inventory Settings to the gear icon in the lower-left corner of all Inventory floaters. When clicked, it will display a floater defining how the Inventory view button (again found at the bottom of Inventory floaters, to the left of the Elements count) and how the Show in Inventory option (right-click on an attachment you are wearing and select from menu) and the Find Original option Inventory option (used with inventory links) all behave.
See the images below for both the menu option and the floater it displays with its options.
The Inventory Settings option and floater. Use the radio buttons to set the options in the latter
Preferences
New option for sorting in “Attach to” menus: Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Sort Attachment Spots in “Attach to” Menus Alphabetically (Requires Restart).
When enabled, attachment spots are sorted alphabetically after a restart.
When disabled, attachment sports are ordered according to the hierarchy for alpha priority.
Menus: the Help → Report Problem now redirects to an informational / instructional page on obtaining help from both the Firestorm team and Linden Lab, as shown below.
The new Firestorm Help informational page
Rendering
The issues with motion blur / ghosting after enabling / disabling Shadows has been fixed. This also fixes the related bug that caused saved snapshots to be too dark when Shadows were disabled if Ambient Occlusion was disabled. See: BUG-234275, BUG-234461 and FIRE-33151.
Other Updates of Note
Firestorm 6.6.16 includes numerous bug fixes and improvements – notably with viewer skinning in light of the new Inventory Extensions UI elements, and numerous small improvements to UI element layouts. Please refer to the release notes for details.
Library Updates
FMOD Studio updated to version 2.02.18 – Release Notes.
KDU updated to version 8.3.
Linux Updates
CURL changes: as the use of CURLINFO_SIZE_DOWNLOAD and CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD has been deprecated since Curl version 7.55 (2017), the respective replacements are CURLINFO_SIZE_DOWNLOAD_T (documentation here) and CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD_T (documentation here). This change will correct the deprecation warnings when compiling with newer versions of curl on Linux.
Library Updates:
SDL updated to version 2.28.4.
Curl library updated to version 8.3.0.232750741.
Nghttp2 library updated to version 1.56.0.232750738.
OpenSSL library updated to version 1.1.1w.232750656.
The IME checkbox has been renamed from “Use IME Text Input” to “Enable Full IME Support” per FIRE-32074.
OpenSim Updates
For OpenSim the Estate Ban limit and number of Estate Managers remain at 500 and 15 respectively, and the new Second Life limits of 750 and 20 respectively are ignored. OpenSim developers will need to add server-side support to enable the higher limits on their grids to make use of the increasing in the viewer.
A fix has been implemented for a potential region crossing crash.
General note: OpenSim does not current support the Inventory Extensions features outlined above.
On Monday August 14th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.14.69596 of their viewer.
This is another release which might be described as more a maintenance update rather thana major features release, intended to keep Firestorm in step with the current official viewer code base. However, it does include some new capabilities.
When reading the following, please note:
This article is not intended to over every update / change / improvement within the release. These can be found within the Firestorm 6.6.14. release notes, which also provide full credit details for the changes.
This review focuses primarily on the new features included with Firestorm 6.6.14, together with an overview of its parity with Linden Lab’s official viewer code base and and overviews of various updates, improvements and fixes I believe will be of specific interest to Firestorm users in general.
Finally, I have not had time to personally try this release to any great extent, so am not offering any personal feedback on it.
Update, August 17th: a JIRA has been filed that rigged meshes viewed in this version of Firestorm using the Local Mesh (BETA) capability (i.e. visible only to the person testing the mesh) introduced in Firestorm 6.6.8 may result in issues. If you are a content creator who uses the Firestorm Local Mesh (BETA) for viewing your rigged mesh creations, please see FIRE-33157.
General Notes
Installation
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 6.6.14.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.5.6 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.14’s release.
Those who are using the 32-bit version of Windows (estimated as around 2% of the Firestorm user base) are advised to check their systems – and if they are using hardware capable of supporting a 64-bit version, to make any necessary upgrades that may be required (generally in the area of RAM), and switch to Windows 64-bit.
An important point to note with this is that 32-bit versions of Windows will not be blocked from accessing Second Life. Rather, viewer upgrades (including the use of required build libraries) will no longer be checked for compatibility with Windows 32-bit. For Firestorm in particular, current 32-bit builds will remain available for the time being; however, no guarantee is given that this will continue to be the case with future releases.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.14.69596 is fully merged up to the Linden 6.6.14 code-base, per the notes below.
Maintenance T – Maintenance Transparent Translation
Primarily focused on the shift of translation services (accessed via Preferences → Chat → Typing → Translation) from Microsoft Bing to Microsoft Azure and DeepL. Also includes a range of Profile-related updates.
Building: Select (and Replace) All Matching Textures
A new option – Find All – within the Build / Edit floater’s Texture tab, allows all faces in an object or linkset using the same diffuse (texture) or normal or specular map, to be updated at once.
Right-click on the item / linkset to be updated and select Edit from the Context / Pie menu.
In the upper part of the Edit / Build floater click the Select Face radio button – (1) in the mage below.
Click the floater’s Texture tab to open it (shown in the image below), and:
Use the Texture / Bumpiness (Normal) or Glossiness (Specular) radio buttons – (2) in the image below – to select the map type to be updated.
Click on a face of the object / linkset containing the map to be updated. The face will be highlighted, and the selected map will be displayed in the Texture Swatch box on the Edit / Build floater – (3) on the image below.
Click on the Find All button to select ALL of the object faces containing the selected map – (4) in the image below.
When you are satisfied you have selected the correct map / surfaces, click the Texture Swatch in the Edit / Build floater to open the Texture Picker floater and pick the map you wish to use and apply it to all the selected faces in the usual manner.
The Find All button for selecting all instances of texture / normal / specular map used on an object / linkset. See notes above for an explanation of the numbers
Building: Strip Unwanted Alpha Channels During Image Uploads
Images uploaded to Second Life can include an empty / almost empty alpha channel which can lead to rendering issues (such as textures flipping back and forth on one another as the camera moves, impacting rendering performance) when the texture is viewed in-world. While such empty / near-empty alpha channels may be intentional, they are generally an accidental or unwanted artefact, and should be removed from the image to avoid issues such as those mentioned above.
To achieve this, Firestorm 6.6.14 introduces an automatic scan of images being uploaded to Second Life to check for alpha channels which are either empty or almost empty.
If such channels are found in an image, the Upload Preview floater will display an additional warning and checkbox: Empty Alpha Channel Will Be Removed (see the image below, left).
Leaving this warning checked will cause the the unwanted transparency information to be stripped from the image when it is uploaded.
If there is a need to have the transparency information uploaded with the image, the warning should be unchecked. However, note that doing so will display an additional caution and explanation on the impact of including alpha channels in images, together with two buttons, as shown in the image below, right.
Click the required button displayed by the caution to clear it, then click the upload button to proceed with the image upload.
Stripping unwanted alpha channels from images at upload
Additional notes:
The alpha state for the image, once uploaded – “no alpha” or “with alpha” – is displayed at the bottom of the upload floater, alongside the uploaded image size (as arrowed at the button of the image on the left, above).
The Uploaded Size field has been fixed to correctly show the size of the uploaded image in all cases. see: FIRE-32944.
Inventory: Show Only Coalesced Objects
Show only coalesced objects in Inventory
Firestorm 6.6.14 adds a new inventory option to display only coalesced objects (i.e. multiple items returned to inventory as a single group, rather than being returned individually).
The option can be found within the Inventory gear icon menu (the gear icon being located at the bottom left of the Inventory floater), directly under those for showing only Modifiable, Copyable or Transferable items in inventory.
Toggle the option on (check mark visible) and off (no check mark) as required.
Note the option works in cooperation with all other options in the menu.
Open the animation Explorer (World → Animation Explorer).
Select the animation to be blacklisted and click the Blacklist button in the lower right section of the Explorer floater.
Repeat for any other animations, as required and close the floater when done.
Blocked animations can be reviewed / unblocked via the Asset Blacklist floater (World → Asset Blacklist).
Notes:
Blocking only applies to animations played through the simulator. Those played locally (i.e. within your viewer) will still be seen by you as playing, even if blocked.
A Blacklisted animation my still be seen by others for a brief period after blocking, as it will take a second or so for the block information to be propagated through the simulator.
Audio Streaming: Stream Title Floater and Track History
It is now possible to display information on the current song title and artist playing on the parcel audio stream (if active), and a history of the last 10 played music tracks. The information is displayed is its own floaters, accessed via the menu bar → World → Stream Title.
Enabling the music stream information, together with the additional recently played history (ported from Kokua)
Additional Firestorm Improvements of Note
Inventory
Reload Received Items: a button within the Received Items section of the Inventory floater will refresh the list of items in the section.
Received Items reload button
Ungroup folder: A request to confirm has been added when ungrouping a folder in inventory.
Inventory offer sound: the Inventory Offer sound (Preferences → Sound & Media → UI Sounds 3 → Inventory Offer) will now play when Automatically Accept New Inventory Items and the following Log Auto-Accepted Inventory Items to Chat are enabled (both under Preferences → Privacy → General). This is is response to FIRE-32396 .
Floater improvements: the floater can now be resized, lists will now scroll, and clipping of text on the Settings tab has been fixed. All in response to FIRE-32624.
Floater should now recognise and load all forms of “.DAE” (e.g. Dae DAe DAE dAE and daE). See FIRE-32180.
Meshes exported with Autodesk Collada should not longer fail, fixing FIRE-32599.
Scaling and rigged mesh handling corrected in accordance with FIRE-32604 and FIRE-32681.
Script Editor: A fix for the unindent after } when a previous line had a word wrap. See: FIRE-19959.
Animation Playback Floater and Preferences
The additional information displayed in the Animation Playback floater (Priority, Duration, Loop, Ease In, Ease Out and Joints) can now be toggled on/off using a drop-down button (see below).
Firestorm Animation Playback floater: advanced animation information can be shown / hidden via the drop-down button
In addition, the default state of the Playback Floater can be set via Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Always Expand Animation Preview Advanced Information. By default the option is unchecked, meaning the advanced information will not be displayed when the Animation Playback floater is displayed.
General UI / Floater Updates of Note
Profile updates:
The View Profile option has been removed from the Context menu for your own avatar, as its already listed in the Community sub-menu. See: FIRE-32304.
Profile description text should not longer be truncated in some cases. See: FIRE-32901.
Unsaved text in the Notes tab of another avatar’s Profile should no longer be discarded when the Profile owner enters or leaves the region at the same time. See: FIRE-32926.
Area Search: updates have been made to Area Search to prevent some of the aggressive culling which is impacted Area Search results.
However, to get the best results when doing an Area Search, you will still need to turn slowly on the spot once, to fully load all the objects.
In addition, once an item is added to the Area Search it will/should not vanish a few seconds later as had been the observed behaviour with previous releases.
Assorted floater design, typographic corrections, layout corrections and tooltip updates, per the release notes.
Other Updates of Note
Asset Cache Update
Until now, automatic purging of the Asset Cache would only commence when the “max_cache” value was exceeded. This essentially meant that a) the Asset Cache could exceed this value, and b) once started, automatic purging would be pretty much constant, impacting viewer performance.
With Firestorm 6.6.14, this has been changed:
The “max_cache” value means just that: the largest size the Asset Cache will reach.
Two thresholds are set via debug settings:
A” high water” threshold set to 95% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, purging of the oldest caches files will commence.
A “low water” threshold set to 70% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, automatic purging will stop.
These two values will ensure:
The “high water” threshold leaves 5% capacity available within the Asset Cache, allowing incoming data from a simulator to be properly caches during any automatic purging.
The “low water” threshold means that automatic purging, once started, will not be constant, potentially impacting viewer performance.
This also means that users can now set their cache to a ramdisk if they really want and it won’t (normally) overflow.
Library Updates
FMOD Studio updated to version 2.02.15.
Havok TPV library updated to version 1.0.577418, in line with LL.
Linux Updates
Improvement: Firestorm now uses system-wide fontconfig and freetype directly from the user’s system, rather than using 3p libraries packaged with the viewer.
Fixes:
A fix for the “alpha triangles bug”(see FIRE-23370).
WIP to get Linux crash reporting working with Bugsplat.
The ability to toggle between internal/external browsers in preferences on Linux (Preferences → Network & Files → Connection → Web Browser).
Updates:
Apr suite updated to version 1.4.5.230351228.
OpenJpeg Library updated to version 2.5.0.
CEF updated to version 1.12.2.202210012157_92.0.27.
Colladadom updated to version 2.3.230940029.
Libxml2 updated to version 2-2.10.3.230940019.
Xmlrpc updated to version 0.54.2.230940042
OpenSim Updates
Opensim VarRregions with non-power of 2 sizes no longer flood logs.
Avatar Profile fixes including: correct loading; UDP profiles restored; profile picks + notes should load, 1st Life notes should save back to the server.
Inventory Extensions in the official viewer: Item and folder contents preview images (l) and the Single Folder View (r)
On Monday, June 26th, Linden Lab issued the Inventory Extensions project viewer, offering two new inventory features intended to make browsing inventory and inventory folders and ascertaining what they / their contents are a lot easier. An official blog post accompanied the new viewer, and this post is intended to offer a little meat an bones on that post for the curious.
The new capabilities comprise:
Inventory Previews (previously referred to as Inventory Thumbnails):
The ability to take images of individual items within inventory (clothing, body parts, accessories, attachments).
Have these images persistently linked to the item (unless intentionally deleted or changed) and displayed when the mouse pointer is hovered over the item in question.
The ability to use your own images, either from inventory or uploaded through the preview tool, which can be persistently associated with the item when the mouse pointer hover over it.
The ability to create and include images for other inventory asset types such as Calling Cards (e.g. a photo of the person to whom the card relates), EEP Settings, Landmarks (e.g. a photo of a location), Notecards, Gestures, Scripts, etc.
The ability to associated images with an entire folder (e.g. a photo of a complete outfit contained in a folder).
There is no fee associated with creating such preview images, whether taken using the in-viewer tool or when uploading your own image via the tool (note the fee will be applied still if you use the Build → Upload Image option).
Merchants and creators can add previews to their delivery folders and items, and these will be automatically displayed on mouseover with the item / folder.
Single Folder view: the ability to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window.
As far as I’m aware, these previews should not place any overhead on inventory loading.
Please note: at the time of writing, these features are only available via a project viewer available via the Alternate Viewers page, and thus should be regarded as being for testing purposes, and they may be subject to further iterations / changes between now and when they do review a de facto release status. Those trying the viewer are encouraged to file any bugs they may find via the Second Life Jira.
Inventory Previews
Creating a Preview via the Preview Snapshot
Select (and wear / display, as applicable) the item for which you wish to create a preview image. In this example, I’m using a hairstyle.
If you are creating a preview of an item of clothing or other wearable, you might want to pose your avatar (although this obviously isn’t essential).
Position your camera so you are ready to take your preview image.
Open your Inventory and locate the item for item for which you wish to create a preview image and right-click on its name to display the Context Menu. Select Image… from the menu.
This will open the Change Item Image floater. To take a preview image directly, click on the Use Snapshot Tool button on the floater (second button from left, with a camera icon).
Creating an Inventory Preview Image of of of my hairstyles
When using the Snapshot Tool, clicking the button will open the Item Snapshot floater:
Use the Take Photo button to refresh the preview of the image about to be taken, if required.
When you are satisfied with the preview image, click Save.
The preview image will be generated and automatically associated with the inventory item.
Viewing A Preview Image
In Inventory, hover the mouse over an item.
If there is a preview image set for it, it will be displayed whilst the mouse remains over the item.
Hovering the mouse pointer over an item in Inventory will display any preview image associated with it
Buttons on the Change Item Image and Item Snapshot Floaters
The image below provides additional descriptions for those buttons on the Change Item Image and Image Snapshot floaters which might not be obvious at first glance.
The buttons on the Change Item Image and Image Snapshot floaters
Additional Notes
When using the Upload From Computer and Use Texture (e.g. a snapshot saved to inventory or other texture in inventory) in the Change Item Image floater, there is no need to take an additional snapshot using the floater – once displayed in the floater, the image will be associated with the item.
To create an image for an entire folder in inventory (such as an outfit), follow the steps for Creating a Preview via the Preview Snapshot, but right-click on the folder itself to select Image… from the Context Menu.
Using the Preview option with an outfit (l) and a Landmark (r)
Single Folder View
This option allows you to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window.
Locate the required folder in inventory.
Right-click on it to display the Context Menus and select Open in a New Window.
The contents of the folder are displayed in a new floater:
Any items with associated preview images have said images displayed in the upper part of the floater.
Items without any associated preview image are listed in the lower portion of the floater.
The Single Folder View (aka open folder in a new window)
General Notes
There have been some claims that the Inventory Preview is an attempt by LL to move in on popular products such as CTS Wardrobe; however, these claims are not really accurate. This kind of inventory preview has long been requested for the viewer, whereas CTS and similar are geared towards web-based inventory organisation (and may require the use of RLV), whilst offering a more rounded feature-set in terms of tagging and other capabilities. As such, they are not in any way invalidated by the release of this functionality, and there are those who may find such systems remain more attractive as an option.
That said, the Lab’s inventory preview is a useful feature, and one that will hopefully be used by content creators as well as by users in general. The single folder inventory view is also useful, although I have a minor niggle over consistency of naming (if the capability is called Single Folder View, how about calling it that in the Context Menu?).
Currently, and as noted above, both features are still in development, and hence only available through the Alternate Viewers page at present, and may be subject to change. Depending on what, if any, changes are made, I may revisit this viewer and provide a further piece on it once it reaches de facto release status.
On Monday January 16th, 2023 (PDT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.8 of their viewer.
This is another release which might be described as more a maintenance update, intended to keep Firestorm in step with the current official viewer code base, together with focus on bug fixes more than new features.
However, that said, there are some significant updates to be found in this release, both from Linden Lab (as with the incorporation of Legacy Profiles) and also from the Firestorm Team (notably the Mesh Preview Upload by Beq Janus).
So, without further ado, lets get into things and see what’s what. And please note that as per all my articles on viewer updates and releases, this is not a full blow-by-blow breakdown of absolutely everything in the release; rather, it is intended to highlight the more significant updates and fixes people are liable to find useful, and offer some general notes .
For a complete breakdown of changes, please see the official release notes for Firestorm 6.6.8.
Installation
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 6.6.8.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.8.68380 is fully merged up to the Linden 6.6.7 code-base, plus some cherry-picked items from upstream, per the notes below.
Hotfix Releases
MFA / ToS Hotfix, viewer version 6.6.7.576223, November 2022 – ensures the viewer correctly required a double-entry of MFA tokens on launching the viewer and on accepting a Terms of Service update.
Modal Hot Fix, viewer version 6.6.4.575022, September 2022 – correcting a crasher within the viewer code.
Fix for a transparency “alpha” blending issues in the above viewer release. In cases of many layers of textures that included transparencies, this would cause some of the lower layers to not render at all.
Improved reporting of spam and phishing attempts from the Group Chat and IM window with the addition of Report Abuse right-click option
Improved land sale option: when selling land, Sell land to “specific person” will show your own name in the “Near Me” list in the people picker – BUG-231954.
Ability to restrict media on a prim to this parcel via World → Parcel Details → Sound → Obscure MOAP – BUG-10416.
Media on a Prim fixes: media will no longer loop when it should not; audio for media no longer plays when the object is edited.
Fixed the Search floater opening without appropriate search results after performing a search from the NavBar
Fixed the “360 snapshot” floater not being refreshed after second clicking on the “World” → “360 snapshot” menu item.
Legacy Profiles
In 2022, Linden Lab made the formal transition back to present avatar profiles through an integrated floater within the viewer with the promotion of viewer version 6.6.3.574158 was promoted to de facto release status in August of that year (although the web-based version of profiles can still be accessed – with reduced functionality – via my.secondlife.com).
With Firestorm 6.6.8, Firestorm incorporates the Lab’s Legacy Profiles code into their existing Profiles floater, with some changes to the latter as noted below.
Firestorm Profiles floater: as it was (l) and as it is with Firestorm 6.6.8 (onwards) (r)
These tabs / options / buttons have been renamed, but the functions remain the same, unless noted below. Note that Interests has been removed.
The Web tab is renamed Feed and displays the user’s Second Life Feed (under my.secondlife.com).
2nd Life and 1st Life tab images:
The 2nd Life Profile picture has a revised aspect ratio.
Within your own profile: clicking the image swatch in either will open a texture picker, allowing you to select an image for either.
Within your own 1st Life tab are three buttons:
Upload Photo – allows you to upload an image from your computer to the 1st Life Tab to preview it (image must still be uploaded to inventory and applied, if it is to be saved & used).
Change Photo – opens a texture picker, allowing you to select an image from inventory to add to your 1st Life tab.
Remove Photo – removes any displayed image from the swatch.
Display Name / Multi-option button:
When viewing your own Profile, the tool button to open the Display Name edit fields is opened.
When viewing the Profile of a Friend, displays a pop-up with the following check-box options:
See when I’m online.
Find me on the world map.
Edit, delete or take my objects.
Note that active options will appear in white on the displayed profile, and inactive will appear greyed out, for eas of reference.
When viewing the Profile on a non-Friend, this area is blank.
Unknown: a new status option (alongside Online and Offline), displayed when the person concerned is not someone you have friended, and who has their viewer set to only show their on-line status to friends.
In addition, and to reduce drama, if a Friend is hiding their status, they will show as Offline, rather than the status in their Profile being blank.
Firestorm Updates and Improvements
Github Actions
Firestorm 6.6.8 is the first set of releases built through the GitHub Actions infrastructure rather than depending on individual developers. This is a significant shift in emphasis for viewer development – and one mirroring moves being made in the same direction by Linden Lab. Benefits include removal of single-person for feature development and providing a more reliable, repeatable build mechanism.
Building and Scripting – Local Mesh (Beta)
Firestorm 6.6.8 introduces Local Mesh as a beta implementation. Developed by Beq Janus, Local Mesh is intended to allow users able to upload mesh to preview their objects in-world (using a “surrogate” object, which can be as simple as a cube prim), and also see edits made to the .DAE file in real time.
The primary aim of this capability is to allow creators check their creations without having to go through the unpredictability of access to Aditi (the Beta grid) for such checks / tests, as well as presenting that real-time viewing of edits to the .DAE file.
The capability works for unrigged mesh, worn rigged mesh and Animesh, and once rendered, the object can have textures and materials applied for testing, as required.
Local Mesh follows the same basic principles as Local Textures, notably:
Meshes are only visible to you through the viewer instance used to apply them.
Meshes only remain visible to you during the current log-in session. A relog will both clear the list of Local Mesh Assets and reduce the “surrogate” object for any local mesh you have “rezzed” in-world to a basic shape.
Local Mesh is accessed via the Build menu: Build → Local Mesh, which in turn opens a new floater, comprising 3 tabs.
The Local Mesh floater. Credit: Beq Janus
Local Mesh Assets Tab
Displays the current list of .DAE files obtained from your computer which are available for potential rendering in-world to view. Objects are listed in the middle section of the tab, together with their assigned LODs. When more that one file is listed, the highlighted file name is the one that will be acted upon.
This tab includes the following buttons:
Add: opens a file picker and allows you to navigate to and select a .DAE file from your computer. When the file is selected and Open in the picker is clicked, the file is added to the list of available .DAE files.
Remove: will remove the highlighted .DAE file from the Local Mesh Assets list and should clears any corresponding in-world object.
Reload: Re-loads the selected file in the Local Mesh list and reapplies it to the Mesh object inworld so use this to applies the most recent edits to your .DAE file to your in-world object.
Clear: Reverts a selected Local Mesh object inworld to it’s normal state (so, if a cube prim was used, the object will revert to a cube).
Apply: if you have a suitable mesh in-world yo can select it and click this button to apply the properties of the file highlighted in Local Mesh Assets to it.
Rez Selected: will prompt you to rez a primitive in-world (via the Build floater, and then applies the properties of the file highlighted in Local Mesh Assets to the rezzed prim.
The Local Mesh workflow
Log Tab
Logging for Local Mesh
If the status of your Local Mesh file in the Local Mesh Assets list shows “Error” instead of “Active”, check the log for the cause of the error.
Settings Tab
Assume scale is in metres:- Ignore the cm scale units used by tools such as Maya,
LOD Suffixes: Choose a standard or manually edit
SL Standard – Lowest is LOD0, High has no suffix
Game Engine Standard – Unity.UES etc, Lowest is LOD3, High is LOD0
LOD names – English LOD names, Lowest is LOWEST, High is HIGH
Converting a Local Mesh to a Local Animesh
Right-click → Edit the required local mesh (in-world or worn).
Add your animations and control scripts to the object.
Select the Features tab in the Build floater and check the Animated Mesh option.
Additional Information
For a complete overview of Local Mesh functionality, please refer to Announcing Local Mesh, by Beq Janus, principal developer of the capability, and which can be found on her blog – which is a must-read for anyone interested in content creation and the technicalities of Second Life. In addition, the ? button of the Local Mesh floater will display web-based Help pages based on the floater tab in which the ? button is clicked.
Building and Scripting – General Updates
Build Floater:
Face selection cycle now starts at face 1 instead of face 0 – FIRE-32282.
Shift+clicking the link/faces button now includes the next face/link into the selection (Build → Select Elements → “Include next part or face” / “Include previous part or face”) – BUG-232757.
Physics updates:
Mesh physics options in mesh upload preview floater
The bounding box now sets a physics cube around the entire mesh even if it is multi part in the mesh uplaoder.
eshes with a hull based (non triangle) user physics will not be convexified when scaled to below 0.5m – BUG-232869 and FIRE-32359.
Animation upload preview on own avatar should no longer fail when the Firestorm AO is enabled – FIRE-32315.
Thursday, September 28th, 2022 saw the release of Kirsten’s Viewer S23 Build 1725 (what a pity build 1701 was a preview – it would have been Enterprise-ing to have a full release like this with all that is packed into it, go out with that ionic number! 😀 ).
While there was an earlier preview release, Build 1725 (initially 1705) – code-named Arcane – marks the first full release of Kirsten’s viewer in over a year – and brings to culmination a lot of hard work on Kirsten’s part in completely overhauling the viewer from stem-to-stern as well as incorporating the latest updates from Linden Lab.
Linden Lab Updates
Given the span of times between this release and the last, there have been numerous de facto viewer releases from the Lab such that listing them all here would simply read as a telephone directory of viewer version numbers and names. However, among that list there are some significant releases worth referencing as now being reflected in Kirsten’s Build 1725:
LLModalDialog() crash hotfix viewer, version 6.6.4.575022, September 2022
Profiles Viewer, version 6.6.3.574158, August 2022.
Performance Improvement viewer, version 6.6.0.571939, May 2022.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) viewer, version 6.5.5.571282, May 2022.
Cache+ 360 Capture viewer, version 6.5.1.566335, December 2021.
Viewer UI updates, version 6.4.20.560520, June 2020.
All of which means that Kirsten’s viewer is bang-slap up-to-date with the Lab’s official release viewer code-base at the time of writing this overview.
For many, the chief updates in the above list will be the Performance Improvements, which (as with other viewers incorporating the Lab’s improvements) bring a significant FPS boost to most systems – notably with ALM enabled, but frequently with ALM+Shadows enabled); together with the 360-degree snapshot capability.
Performance Improvements / Changes
The Performance improvements contained within Kirsten’s 1725 actually break down into two categories:
The primarily under-the-hood improvements from Linden Lab which come via the Performance Improvements viewer as defined above,
The Graphics Improvements developed by Beq Janus and first released in Firestorm 6.5.3 in March 2022. These were submitted to Linden Lab and have been incorporated into the Performance Floater / Auto FPS t viewer, which at the time of writing this article was at project viewer status, and from which they have been pulled into Kirsten’s S23 1725.
Those wishing to take a deeper look at the Graphics Improvements floater and its options can do so via my Firestorm 6.5.3 review – but please note that while the functionality present within Firestorm is largely the same as for the official viewer /Kirsten’s viewer, the layout of the floater is slightly different. For completeness, the following is just a brief outline of the floater and its panels as found within the official viewer / Kirstens viewer:
The Firestorm-developed Graphics Improvements floater, as found with Kirsten’s Viewer (and the Lab’s Performance Floater / Auto FPS viewer)
Your current frame rate, which can be adjusted through changes in the Graphics Settings panel. Note that my FPS is shown as running at a maximum of 60 FPS as I have Vsync enabled, which limits frame rates to the screen refresh rate (60 Hz).
Displays the most commonly-used graphics settings (but not all – the Vsync option, for example, is absent and must be accessed via Preferences→Graphics) which can impact frame rates.
Lists all the avatars your viewer is currently rendering, and presents the time is takes to render them in microseconds (µs – a millionth of a second).You can use this panel to select individual avatars and select whether or not they are always fully rendered or never fully rendered.
Provides a breakdown of your avatar’s attachments and their render time / cost, and allows you to remove “laggy” items.
Provides a breakdown of your avatar’s HUD attachments and their render time / cost, and allows you to remove “laggy” items.
Presents the “Auto FPS” capability (several of the options found in the top bar of the Firestorm version of the floater as described in my review above) together with distance settings for rendering avatars in full detail and between which the auto-FPS will attempt to function.
Kirsten’s Viewer Updates
Build 1725 also includes a lot of changes from Kirsten as well. This can be split between the “visible” and the the under-the-hood, which together add up to a lot of work on Lee’s part to completely overhaul the viewer’s code and add multiple subtle but worthwhile changes.
The visible updates include:
Use use of gradients in floaters an panels to add a “softness” to them which helps them feel more a part of the viewer and the rendered scene behind, rather than sitting like a floating rectangle completely obscuring the view beyond.
Subtle, but appreciable updates to some – but not all – of the toolbar button icons.
Kirsten’s Viewer toolbar buttons showing the updated icons used with some
A refactoring of the AO floater to clean-up issues of buttons overlaying text within the panel.
1725 offers three new viewer skinning options:
Linden – speaks for itself, for those who prefer the look of the official viewers.
Pewter – the default, and a really nice take on the colour of the odd 1.23.x viewer series offering a soft pewter blue which is easy on the eye.
Jinx – a more lavender / purple finish semi-mindful of Kokua without replicating it.
Film Menu
Kirsten’s Viewer film menuThe Film Menu is a new menu option to Kirsten’s Viewer which is likely to be useful to photographers and machinima makers – and possibly to those who have the Space Navigator (SpaceNav) 3D mouse available for use with SL.
In short, this brings together options from other menus and Preferences, as will as supplying some custom options, designed to make recording machinima / taking photos easier. These range from the basic hide / show UI elements / HUDs through to adjusting shaders and those nifty options for adjusting how your SpaceNav mouse responds / influences avatar behaviour.
This menu may not be as comprehensive as the likes of similar options from in Black Dragon or the PhotoTools UI option within Firestorm, but it is still a good selection of functions and toggles that can be easily called up when filming / photographing a scene – although as a photographer myself, I’d perhaps like to see a few additions to make the menu a little more usable to those of us (the majority?) who prefer to take stills shots (e.g. the ability to de-render all avatars from a landscape shot, for example). But this is a minor point.
Under-the-Hood
The core amount of work carried out in this build has been the merging with the latest LL code-base, and a major overhaul of the code by Kirsten, as noted in the release description:
Anaglyph Render refactored … System detection totally rewritten to interrogate kernel (not registry or using manifests). Days and Days removing old code and going line by line improving performance. And I seriously mean that analysing each if/else statement and function for even the most minute tweak.
Finally, this is built with full optimisation and link time code generation.
Feedback
Kirstens Viewer has always offered good performance and crisp rendering, and the incorporation of the Lab’s updates (and those modified from Firestorm), together with the work put in by Kirsten in refactoring the code means that S23 1725 is one of the slickest performing viewers I’ve used – although I have little doubt it would not find favour among some SL users due to the lack of RLV or RLVa support, which is a shame.
On a personal note, I do like the new skinning options that come with 1725 – the “old” green default was to me a little too vibrant, whereas the Pewter is a lot easier on the eyes. However, I have been conflicted over the use of gradients on the drop-down menus. As noted above, the use of gradients on floaters and their panels works well, but their use in the menus might make menu options harder to see for those with vision impairments.
But, that said, there is no doubt that 1725 is an excellent update to Kirsten’s Viewer, and one that will hopefully put the viewer in a position where it an more readily keep pace with updates from Linden Lab & adopt new features (and those deemed suitable coming out of other TPVs) going forward.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 