Category: V7 Style

Black Dragon updates: attachment fixes and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

Blackdragon logoNiranV Dean once again issued a rapid-fire series of updates to Black Dragon in week #29, upping the version number from 2.4.3.6 to 2.4.3.9 in the process.

The reason for the speed of updates is a combination of the Lab pushing through quite a lot at the moment, and Niran providing some tweaks, fixes and updates of his own / sourced from other RPVs.

The first update out of the gate was 2.4.3.7, on Monday July 13th, which incorporated the Lab’s summer Maintenance release (version 3.8.2.303563 at the time of writing – see the release notes on the Lab’s release for a list of the updates incorporated into Black Dragon).

This was followed on Wednesday, July 15th by version 2.4.3.8, which incorporated the Lab’s Project Big Bird updates. These are a series of viewer-side fixes for a fair number of attachment issues people have been experiencing since the arrival of AIS v3, and some which pre-date it. These include, but are not limited to, teleporting / crossing a region and having attachments removed; teleporting or crossing a region and losing attachments in your view while others can still see them (and vice-versa); seeing attachments as removed but the viewer reports them as attached, etc.

This version also incorporates Kitty Barnett’s “borderless window mode” (Preferences > Display). when enabled, this will expand the viewer window to the full size of your screen, hiding the title bar without the need for a re-log. When disabled, will return the viewer window to its last framed sized.

The borderless window option with expand the viewer window to your full screen size, hiding the top bar and borders
The borderless window option with expand the viewer window to your full screen size, hiding the top bar and without the need fora re-log

Released on Sunday, July 19th, version 2.4.3.9 contains further maintenance tweaks and updates, notably the official code for right-clicking and selecting worn mesh.

Niran has also addressed the issue found in the Notifications Viewer, where the buttons for accepting / declining a group invitation are only displayed when an invitation is received – if you miss it due to AFK or anything, and then open the invitation in the Notifications floater, it is displayed without any means to act upon it – see BUG-9625, which also points out that invitations to Experiences, and requests to accept deny debit permissions suffer the same issue).

group join
Niran has added the buttons for accepting / rejecting a group invite when it is displayed in the Notifications floater.

As well as the above, Niran has included a range of fixes and updates with each of these releases – please refer for the relevant release notes for details – and is continuing to tweak things on the rendering side of things, improving things like lens flare, ans also tweaking the Unified Snapshot floater.

There will doubtless be a further Black Dragon update winging its way towards release very soon, one which contains the Lab’s Viewer-Managed Marketplace updates. In the meantime, these updates ensure Black Dragon remains on a par with the majority of the Lab’s offerings available in the viewer release channel.

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Alchemy 3.8.1 Beta update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Alchemy-logoOn Thursday, July 16th Alchemy both released their latest beta and announced they are considering moving to monthly releases in order to better keep pace with the Lab’s own releases.

Such a schedule would in part depend upon what the Lab have coming downstream, even allowing for their aim of promoting a viewer every other week. So we’ll likely see how this pans out. In the meantime, there is Alchemy Beta 3.8.1.35916. The following a brief summary of the release; as always, please refer to the release notes as well.

This update brings Alchemy to parity with the Lab’s 3.8.1 code base, meaning it has everything found in the Lab’s release viewer up to and including the attachment fixes found in the SL viewer 3.8.1.303130.

Some of Alchemy's new additions: displaying the avatar name in the viewer title bar and the audio information floater
Some of Alchemy’s new additions: displaying the avatar name in the viewer title bar and the audio information floater

In terms of Alchemy additions, the 3.8.1 release brings an optional musical stream identification floater (accessed via Me > Audio Ticker), and now shows the currently logged-in avatar’s name in the viewer title bar; a useful addition if you’re running multiple instances of the viewer and wish to see which is which when they are minimised.

A further addition is the option to view profiles (your own and other people’s profiles either in the “legacy style” floater or as a web profile.  The profile view can be switched by checking / unchecking Preferences > Interface > General > Open profiles in web mode.

Which profile: legacy or web? You get to choose
Which profile: legacy or web? You get to choose

Among the under-the-hood changes and the fixes in this release can be found OpenSSL updates, while a further update visible to users is a fix to prevent the radar spamming a series of messages about avatars in a previous region “leaving” when teleporting to another region, if you have it set to report “entering” and “leaving” agents (see ALCH-223).

There is a known issue with the viewer starting on Windows. If you receive a message similar to “The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)”, please download and install one of the following two files from Microsoft:

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

There is also a known issue when trying to alter Music URL etc., when accessing About Land via the land information icon in the navigation bar. This will be fixed in the next release; for now the workaround is to right-click the ground and access About Land via the context menu.

A small, tidy update. Will be interesting to see if the Alchemy devs do opt to try for monthly updates.

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Firestorm ask “viewer translations, can you help?”

Posted on by Inara Pey

firestorm-logoOn Friday, July 17th, Jessica Lyon of the Firestorm team issued a blog post updating users on the progress of the upcoming release, together with an appeal for assistance.

The last release of Firestorm – which I overviewed here – was officially referred to as a “beta” release, as it was rolled out at a time when further updates were expected from the Lab which would prompt a further Firestorm release, possibly in short order. In particular, Firestorm were waiting for the following “big three” from the Lab to reach release status with the Lab:

  • Experience tools, (which were promoted to release status by the Lab at the end of June)
  • The Project Big Bird fixes for viewer-side attachment issues (promoted to the official release viewer on Tuesday, July 14th)
  • Viewer-Managed Marketplace  (which the Lab have just announced as “released”, ahead of the start of the automated migration process for Merchants, despite the viewer code still being at RC status at the time of writing).

While the Firestorm post doesn’t commit to a date when the new release might appear, but does make it clear that the release is coming soon. Also, as well as these particular updates, the blog post indicates it will include additional fixes and updates from the Firestorm team and contributors – including updates from Kitty Barnett for RLVa (one of the most frequently requested updates), and other goodies beside – such as updates to the Unified Snapshot floater.

For those not overly keen on the preview pane in the Unified Snapshot Floater (see above left), the next release of Firestorm should see the return of the "old" snapshot preview (seen above right), with the option to freely switch between the two
For those not overly keen on the preview pane in the Unified Snapshot Floater (above left), the next release of Firestorm should see the return of the “old” snapshot preview (above right), with the option to freely switch between the two via the arrow button

As well as hinting at what is to come, the Firestorm post also includes an appeal for help, as Jessica explains:

There was a time when Linden Lab had the interface translated in multiple languages, and we did, too, since we are based on the Linden code. However, as time passed, new additions to the interface were added, and the translation of these interface elements fell behind. Today most translated language interfaces actually contain more English than the chosen language, and it is becoming more and more difficult to merge these half-translated UI elements with upstream code.

Because of this, the team have decided to discontinue and remove translations which might be regarded as “incomplete” and for which they do not have the internal expertise to correctly maintain.  These comprise: Chinese, Danish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

However, the team is will re-introduce any of these languages if there are people willing to commit to providing UI translations for them, and maintaining the translations long-term. As such, the Firestorm team is looking to hear from volunteers willing to do so. However, as Jessica notes:

UI translation involves more work than merely providing the terms for the correct language. Volunteers must be comfortable with editing and properly formatting xml files or should be able to learn how to do so.

If you have the necessary language and technical expertise, and are confident you can provide the required commitment to update and maintain a viewer translation for one of the languages listed above, please read the Translating Firestorm wiki page for further information, and then express your interest directly to the Firestorm team via e-mail to  admin@phoenixviewer.com.

Black Dragon: notifications and shadows

Posted on by Inara Pey

Blackdragon logoOn Thursday, July 9th, NiranV Dean released version 2.4.3.6 of his Black Dragon viewer.

The release brought with it a rapid-fire implementation of the Lab’s new notifications update from LL, which comes a little ahead of the curve, given the Lab prefer their code to be integrated into TPVs once it reaches RC status, and can be regarded as somewhat more stable than might be the case with a project viewer release. However, the code is such that it is apparently easy to manage should updates be forthcoming as that project progresses.

In implementing the notifications update, Niran has made some subtle changes to the notifications floater itself, improving the overall layout, although the overall functionality is pretty much as offered through the Lab’s current project viewer. Rather than describe the functionality here, readers are invited to read my overview of the project viewer.

The other major update with this release of Black Dragon release is related to shadows and lighting, and specifically, the uncoupling of shadow rendering from draw distance.

Because shadow rendering has been bound to draw distance, shadows tend to fade away the closer they are to your draw distance limit, with the result that the further objects are away from you, the less well-defined their shadows appear / the less shadows may influence how they appear, with objects close to the edge of your draw distance sometimes appearing shadowless.

With this change, Niran has added a new slider to the Display tab of Preferences, allowing the user to independently set a “shadow rendering distance”, thus allowing a better rendering and representation of shadows independent of draw distance.

Black Dragon 2.4.3.6: the new shadow rendering distance slider
Black Dragon 2.4.3.6: the new shadow rendering distance slider in Preferences. A similar slider is also in the Machinima sidebar

The result is a much improved depth of view in-world, and greatly enhanced snapshots (see Niran’s samples accompanying the viewer’s release notes).

By-and-large, extending the shadow rendering distance shouldn’t result in any appreciable performance hit. However, there is a caveat, as Niran explains:

Increasing the shadow draw distance will reduce the overall shadow precision, because shadows are split into shadow clip planes, 4 shadow textures if you will, these shadow textures have a given resolution (which you can set in preferences), increasing the shadow rendering distance scales up all 4 planes equally, increasing the area one texture has to cover, reducing the precision in that area obviously. You could counter this by increasing the shadow resolution or multiplier, but that would impact frame rate.

A side benefit of this, as Niran notes, is that because volumetric lighting is calculated via the shadow clip planes and shadow maps, increasing the shadow rendering distance enhances the volumetric lighting effects in the viewer. Again, check the sample images Niran provides with the release notes.

Other updates in this release include:

  • Re-enabling of the experimental auto-hiding of the Textures, Sounds, Calling Cards, Landmarks, Notecards, Scripts, Photo Album, Animations, Gestures, Favourites and My Outfits folders in Inventory (debug: DebugHideEmptySystemFolders)
  • Disabling of the auto-hiding of empty folders by default
  • Improvements to SSAO defaults
  • Freeze world and mode toggling issues, as reported in STORM-2118, fixed and implemented in this Black Dragon release
  • Further RLVa updates.

As always, for the full range of changes / updates, please refer to the release notes.

Additional Links

Lab issues notifications project viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn  Wednesday, July 8th, the Lab issued their notifications project viewer, which sees an overhaul of the way in which notifications – system, group, transaction, etc., are presented through the viewer.

The viewer has been in the works for a while, and is the direct request of a feature request put to the Lab by Aki Shichiroji back in 2012 (see BUG-8000), and which has more recently been working its way through the Lab’s work list to appear in project form on July 8th.

The release of the project viewer, version 3.8.1.303211, was accompanied by an official blog post on the subject, which reads in part:

The Notifications Project Viewer is an improvement for sorting your notifications. This new feature is based on your feedback: a notifications floater with four tabs sorting your incoming notifications into System, Transactions, Invitations, and Groups and allowing better interaction with them as well.  Those who deal with high volumes of money transactions, group notices, group invites, or inventory transfers now have a better way to review their messages and identify which notices need immediate attention.

The images below show the floater and its four tabs:

The new Notifications floater - see below for explanatory notes
The new Notifications floater – see below for explanatory notes

Multiple notifications within a tab are initially shown compressed (above left). Clicking on the down pointing arrow button for a specific notification (highlighted in red, above left) will expand that particular notification within the floater (above right), with scroll bars allowing you to scroll down through an individual notification or through the notifications within that tab.  Clicking the up point arrow button (highlighted in blue, above right) will compress an expanded notification.

As with the current notification system within the release viewer, individual notifications can be deleted from any tab by clicking the X button. There are also additional buttons within the panel for collapsing all expended notifications or deleting all notifications within the currently displayed tab (i.e. clicking Delete All with the System notifications tab will delete all notifications in that tab but not all of your notifications in general).

A further improvement to the way notifications are displayed is that a time stamp for when a notification was sent / received is now clearly visible, both in the collapsed and expanded views for all notifications. The presence of any attachment is also indicated by the use of a paper clip symbol.

Given this is a project viewer, the Lab is requesting feedback and bug reports via the Second Life JIRA.

A couple of issues have been filed already. One of these – BUG-9625 – points out that the notification floater currently fails to include any means of accepting a group invitation; the only way of accepting an invitation in the project viewer at present, is to click on the button displayed in the initial pop-up (which will still be displayed as usual).  Expect this to be created in due course as the project viewer is updated.

Also, do keep in mind this is a project viewer, and currently not intended for prime time use.

Related Links

UKanDo and Black Dragon get Experience Tools

Posted on by Inara Pey

Both UKanDo and Black Dragon have recently incorporated the Lab’s Experience tools, following their were promotion to release status in the official viewer on June 30th, 2015.

UKanDo arrived with Experience Tools on Thursday, July 2nd, with the release of version 3.8.0.28122. As with the official viewer, this adds the Experiences floater access to the ME menu, and also has the Region / Estate and About Land panel also updated with their respective Experiences tabs.

The Experiences floater and an Experience Profile as they appear in UKanDo with the default skin. The viewer also includes the Region / Estate and the About Land Experience Tools updates as well
The Experiences floater and an Experience Profile as they appear in UKanDo with the default skin. The viewer also includes the Region / Estate and the About Land Experience Tools updates as well

In addition, as a part of this release, UKanDo updates to RLV 2.9.12, with the NaCl / Marine Kelley avatar shadow rendering updates for rigged mesh – see my article of RLV 2.9.12, available here.

UKanDo 3.8.0 also includes Marine Kelley's RLV 2.9.12 update, with the avatar shadow rendering debug setting to help with rendering performance when running with shadows enabled and surrounded by avatars using mesh bodies & other rigged mesh attachments
UKanDo 3.8.0 also includes Marine Kelley’s RLV 2.9.12 update, with the avatar shadow rendering debug setting to help with rendering performance when running with shadows enabled and surrounded by avatars using mesh bodies & other rigged mesh attachments

Black Dragon release 2.4.3.5 sees the Experiences floater added to Dragon > Edit menu. As with UKanDo, it also adds the Experiences tabs to the Region / Estate and About Land Floaters.

This release, which arrived on July 4th after a couple of hiccups with versions 2.4.3.3 and 2.4.3.4, also includes Niran’s July 3rd update, which focused on a complete RLVa update, as per the release notes for that version.

I’ve not had an opportunity to extensively drive either of these viewers; my time is a little squeezed at the moment, and I’m struggling to clear a backlog of work and bits. So, consider this more a heads-up than any attempt at a review.

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