Category: V7 Style

Black Dragon 2.3.9.8: poking at the UI and adding filters to the snapshot floater

Posted on by Inara Pey

Blackdragon logoOn Friday May 16th, Black Dragon 2.3.9.8 was released on the world. The release is marked as “experimental”, and so some caution is advised in using it. It is also billed as a part-way release between the 2.3 and 2.4 versions of the viewer.

The majority of the changes this time around are within the UI, although the version does pick-up on some new shiny from LL, notably the SL Share 2 capabilities for uploading text and photos to Twitter and photos to Flickr.

Again, this isn’t intended as an in-depth review of the viewer, more a look at some of the highlights and give some initial feedback.

UI – Toolbar Buttons

The UI changes are immediately apparent on launching the viewer: the UI has moved more to a black schema, and system messages, etc., are by default in red. The result is quite striking, but at the same time I wonder how those with visual impairments will find the viewer at first glance.

The most noticeable element of this version of the viewer when run for the first time, is new button placement area at the top left of the screen. This displays buttons where one would, in any other v3-based viewer, expect to find the Me, Comm, World, etc., menu options.

The new top bar arrangement in Black Dragon - note the toolbar buttons on the left (click for full size)
The new top bar arrangement in Black Dragon includes the ability to set-up toolbar buttons “in” the top bar, ranged to the left of the Black Dragon drop-down menu which accesses the familiar menu options (“Dragon”)

The buttons are displayed in a new size of “Tiny”, and are immediately followed by the Dragon menu option, which provides access to the expected drop-down of menus (File, Edit View, World, etc). Right-clicking on these buttons displays the expected button options menu, and buttons can still be dragged and placed on the left or right of the screen or at the bottom of the screen, according to your own preference.

It’s an interesting approach, and bearing in mind the current release is experimental, not entirely trouble-free, for me at least. By default, the Navigation & Favourites bar are enabled, but for me, the Navigation Bar didn’t display the region name or any details, and toggling to the Mini-location Bar caused it clash with the toolbar buttons, suggesting more work needs to be done in integrating the two sets of functions. Given the nature of the viewer, I’m not pointing to either item a fault, but rather something to be aware of should you try the viewer yourself and encounter similar oddities.

Additional "spacer" buttons in the Black Dragon Toolbar Buttons floater can be used to add spaces between groups of toolbar buttons
Additional “spacer” buttons in the Black Dragon Toolbar Buttons floater can be used break-up buttons in a toolbar into logical groups

Another interesting / useful little extra is the addition of five “spacer” buttons to the Toolbar button floater. Like the toolbar buttons, these can be dragged and dropped into any of the toolbar areas and used to break-up the buttons displayed within it into groups. As with the other buttons on the floater, note that each spacer can only be displayed (used) the once.

Snapshot Floater Overhaul

Niran has undertaken a complete overhaul of the snapshot floater. Again, this still appears to be a work-in-progress, given the lack of a preview panel for viewing snaps, but what is there is likely to get some people bouncing in their seats.

The most immediate change visible in the floater is the inclusion of buttons for the share to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr options. Clicking on any of these will launch the respective floater, thus offering a quick and easy way to swap from the snapshot floater should you wish to upload an image elsewhere.

However, and perhaps more particularly for most people, Niran has incorporated the post-processing filters from the SL Share 2 viewer into the snapshot floater. This means that when saving snapshots to disk, e-mail or your Profile feed, you can now apply any of the filters supplied with the  SL Share 2 code (1970s colours, autocontrast, sepia, lens flare, etc., and Niran’s own “realblackandwite”).

Black Dragon's WIP snapshot floater: note the inclusion of the post-process filter options, applicable to iamges saved to disk and inventory and uploaded to profiles feeds or e-mailed
Black Dragon’s WIP snapshot floater: note the inclusion of the post-process filter options, applicable to images saved to disk and inventory and uploaded to profiles feeds or e-mailed

Clicking on the red bar to the right of the floater will open the preview pane – something which caught me out initially in looking at Black Dragon (and for some reason a trial click didn’t do anything – so my thanks to Maddy Gynoid for poking me on this and getting me to try again and revise this review as a result).

The snapshot preview panel
The snapshot preview panel

Motion Blur and Godrays

Black Dragon’s motion blur option is now on by default, and gets its own tuning options in Preferences > Display. Note that motion blur, while itself on by default, will only work when Deferred Rendering (now more commonly called “Advanced Lighting Model” in viewers) is enabled. However, Ambient Occlusion and Shadows do not need to be enabled.

The Motion Blur and Godray options in Preferences > Display
The Motion Blur and Godray options in Preferences > Display

This release of Black Dragon also sees the Godrays option gain a toggle option in Preferences > Display, together with fine tuning sliders.

Niran has produced a video demonstrating motion blur, embedded below, or you can travel to the Black Dragon office in Hippo Hollow and witness it first-hand using the viewer.

Godrays, from Tofu Buzzard, were introduced with the last release of Black Dragon, but enabling them was a slightly convoluted process, as Niran hadn’t got around to adding a toggle function to them. The new option, together with the fine tuning sliders makes using Godrays much easier, and can, with the right windlight settings, produce some stunning effects, although (for me at least) it took some trial-and-error to get something reasonably usable, When used properly, it can add some stunning depth / feel to snapshots, although I did encounter something slightly unexpected when panning my camera around a sky build when I had Godrays enabled.

Casting shadows on the sky with Godrays
Casting shadows on the sky with Godrays

Given most people will be looking towards the Sun when using the Godrays effect, this isn’t much of an issue; however, for the artistically minded, it might offer-up ways to produce some interesting images …

Feedback

Niran has always pushed the envelope with the viewer, and this release of Black Dragon is again ample demonstration of that. The fact that much of the UI is still a work-in-progress means that it would be unfair to pick at it at any length, given any issues that might be apparent could well be down to the fact that it is in a state of flux.

That said, the new approach to the top bar areas of the viewer is interesting, and I’d like to see how that develops, vis getting things like the Navigation bar to correctly display. I’m not totally convinced about the toolbar button area sited to the top left screen; which it works fine for the “mini icons” setting, it does so only if your taste in buttons is minimal. Get to many, and they start wrapping. Use any of the other display options, and things can get a little messy up there very quickly.

The mini icon option also works on the side and bottom toolbar positions, and from my perspective works really well in them; the buttons are unobtrusive but easy to click. Now, if only Black Dragon would include an option to left / right range them along the bottom…

However, as mentioned above, it is the snapshot floater where Niran is to be given particular kudos; the inclusion of the SL Share 2 filters is an excellent addition. The overall design of the panel is something I wouldn’t mind seeing in other viewers; so hopefully it’ll be contributed back to LL and accepted.

Related Links

 

May 17th Firestorm meeting: audio and transcript

Posted on by Inara Pey

firestorm-logoOn Saturday May 17th 2014, the Firestorm team hosted another of their Q and A sessions to discuss Firestorm and Second Life, and to address users’ questions. Unfortunately, no public video for the meeting is available. The following transcript is therefore provided from a personal audio recording made by myself.

For those who wish to listen to the audio, and for ease of reference, it has been broken down into a number of files, each of which precedes the text to which it relates

When reading, please remember:

  • This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the audio, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
  • If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, repetition, questions to others etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
  • Questions / comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat
  • This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. I am not an official member of the Firestorm team, and technical or support issues relating to Firestorm cannot be addressed through these pages. Such requests for assistance should be made through the in-world Firestorm Support groups or at the Firestorm support region.
Firestormers Assemble: Takoda, Tonya, Jessica and Ed settle-in for another Firestorm Q&A session
Firestormers Assemble: Takoda, Tonya, Jessica and Ed settle-in for another Firestorm Q&A session

Firestorm 4.6.5 and the Release Cycle

 

00:00 Jessica Lyon (JL): So we released 4.6.5 two months early – surprise! It’s been a more-or-less, pretty much across-the-board, a really good release for folks, with few problems and lots of improvements, although it is primarily just bug fixes which are in it anyways. So that was sort-of to be expected and hoped.

00:25 JL: It was a bit of an experiment, because we’ve had a lot of people complain about how long our releases take, including some of our own developers and even some support people. So it was a bit of an experiment in some ways just to see what happens if we do a release in half the time. And the results are interesting.

00:48 JL: Adoption – the rate at which people upgrade from whatever older version they’re on, has been very slow compared to other releases; although that’s not to say it’s non-existent. We have … 85,000 people on 4.6.5 now, and that’s not quite in a full week [since release]. So that’s no slouchy number; but in a typical release, we’re usually up around 140,000, so almost twice that.

01:28 JL: It’s easier for support, certainly, because fewer people are updating all at the same time, so I guess that stretches out the support load. [It’s] easer for QA, that’s good to know. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do releases in that two-month time frame all the time.

01:56 JL: For example, our next task is going to be project interesting, which I’m sure most of you are aware of, Linden Lab just finally released it, and it’s apparently really, really good. Things rez much faster, and we can’t wait to get … to the point after we’ve merged it … [there’s a description of the interest list work, as per the blog post linked to above].

The interest list updates provide more predictable and faster scene rendering, such as large objects and those closest to you appearing first, rather than at random. more use is also made of the viewer's cache (so the warning for not clearing cache as a first action in "fixing" issues becomes even more important
The interest list updates provide more predictable and faster scene rendering, such as large objects and those closest to you appearing first, rather than at random. More use is also made of the viewer’s cache (so the warning for not clearing cache as a first action in “fixing” issues becomes even more important)

Continue reading “May 17th Firestorm meeting: audio and transcript” →

Firestorm 4.6.5: steady as she goes

Posted on by Inara Pey

firestorm-logoOn Sunday May 11th, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 4.6.5.40833. Given this release comes just two months after the 4.6.1 release, it does not have a huge raft of new shiny. What it does offer is a nice package of new features and updates, together with a fair few bug fixes from both the Lab and the Firestorm team.

As always, the complete list of changes, together with attributions, can be found in the release notes, and I refer readers to that document for specifics on all contributors, FIRE JIRA links, etc. The following is intended as an overview of some of the more major / interesting changes, updates and  fixes to be found in the release.

The Before We Begin Notes

  • Downloading – a reminder: while the Firestorm download server performed perfectly for the 4.6.1 release, please remember it is the only server handling downloads. So in the unlikely event you encounter delays or a slow download, please be patient / consider re-trying a little later
  • Version blocking: Jessica informs me that there are no plans to block any older Firestorm versions following this release
  • Installation: as always, a completely clean install of the viewer is recommended.

Lab Updates

This release sees Firestorm reach parity with LL’s 3.7.4 code-base, and add a number of fixes and updates from the Lab, including (but not limited to):

  • Vivox 4.6.x updates
  • Advanced Lighting Model can no longer be enabled for Mac OSX 10.6.8 as Mac OSX 10.6.8 is no longer supported by Linden lab (The ability to enable ALM on 10.6.8 was removed because it caused rendering glitches when enabled)
  • Fix for huge amounts of memory being used & viewer crashing when opening large chat histories from the conversation log
  • Fix for BUG-5537, introduced as a result of changes made to the avatar_lad.xml for Fitted Mesh. These changes caused a non-rigged mesh attachment object worn on the chest attachment point shape to look fine in the wearer’s view whereas anyone else it would appear as if the wearer’s chest was showing through the clothing item
  • Fix for crash when editing certain rigged meshes at high altitude
  • Fix for crash when uploading corrupt .DAE file (BUG-4961)
  • Fix for BUG-997,terrain texture changes caused by changing texture elevation ranges or terraforming can not be seen until after relog or teleporting out and back to the region
  • Fix for a suspected thread race crasher in the FmodEx library.

A Note on Interest List Updates

The recent LL viewer-side interest list updates are not a part of the Firestorm 4.6.5 release. As noted elsewhere in this blog, the interest list code is a non-trivial merge due to the extent of changes included alongside of the core interest list updates. It’ll therefore take a little longer for this work to appear in Firestorm.

Building and Scripting Updates

Firestorm 4.6.5 see the Build options in Preferences revised, with two Build sub-tabs (Build 1 and Build 2) under Preferences > Firestorm.

The revised Build-1 sub-tab in Preferences > Firestorm
The revised Build-1 sub-tab in Preferences > Firestorm

Build 1 (above) contains the options for setting defaults for all newly created prims (size, settings, texture, permissions and pivot point) and the LSL pre-processor options.

The Build 2 sub-tab contains the six check-boxes (Save Scripts Edited from Inventory to Mono, Save Textures from Inventory to Disk as PNG Instead of TGA by Default, etc, which had been in the previous Build sub-tab). It also contains four new options.

The new Build 2 sub-tab in Preferences > Firestorm
The new Build 2 sub-tab in Preferences > Firestorm

The new options are:

  • Limit select distance (meters) – disallows selection of objects beyond the specified selection distance from your avatar
  • Limit drag distance (meters) – when enabled, this limits the translation distance of objects in a single operation of the translate tool (metres from start point)
  • Constrain rotations to multiples of X degrees, when not using ‘snap to grid’ – all rotations via the rotation tool are constrained to multiples of this unit (degrees)
  • Preview animations on own avatar during upload – when enabled, you can preview animations during the upload process on your own avatar instead of on the avatar dummy in the upload window.

Firestorm 4.6.5 also includes the following build related items:

  • An option to prevent avatar from turning to selected object when editing (Preferences > Move & View > Firestorm > Turn Avatar Towards a Selected Object)
  •  A fix so that when previewing an animation for uploading it (in paused mode), moving the track of the slider will now correctly change the displayed frame of the animation.

Communications Updates

There are a number of new options for communications with this release, together with a number of fixes. The new features include:

voice-warn
The new multiple voice instances option should enable you to run voice on multiple viewer instances on the same computer & without generating warnings like this
  • An option to allow voice to connect in multiple viewer instances simultaneously (Preferences > Sound and Media > Voice Settings), allowing you to run voice on multiple viewer instances, and without seeing the connection warning pop-up message (shown right)
  • An option to hear voice equally from everyone, rather than being dependent upon either avatar position or camera placement. This is a useful addition for meetings, etc., where attendees may be located at difference distances from your avatar / camera position, thus impacting voice quality when they are speaking.
The new voice options in Preferences > Sound and Media > Voice Settings
The new voice options in Preferences > Sound and Media > Voice Settings
  • A new option has been added to enable the full profile of an avatar to be opened when clicking on an inspect SLurl (Preferences > Firestorm > General > Open Avatar Profile Directly When Clicking on its Name).

Continue reading “Firestorm 4.6.5: steady as she goes” →

Catznip R9: the cat gets the cream

Posted on by Inara Pey

catznip logoCatznip released version R9 of their popular v3 viewer on Friday May 9th, and marks their biggest single update so far. As the team move towards a shorter, faster release cycle, it is likely to be the last of the really big updates we see coming out of the door from the team. In the future, things are liable to appear in smaller and more focused releases.

The complete list of changes can be found in the release notes, and I refer readers to that document for a full list of updates and changes, and any necessary specifics on code contributed to the viewer (if applicable).

The following is intended as an overview of some of what I feel are the more major / interesting / visible changes to be found in the release.

Chat  and CHUI

R9 sees Catznip get the best of CHUI and extras from the Catznip team that should help to present users with a chat  / IM conversations.

Catznip R9 chat takes the best of CHUI and adds Catznip's own tweaks, and the return of popular elements
Catznip R9 chat takes the best of CHUI and adds Catznip’s own tweaks, and the return of popular elements

One of the more noticeable elements is the ability to range tabs either vertically or horizontally. Given that many people do appreciate chiclets, considerable effort has been put into restoring the chiclets following the inclusion of the CHUI code.

Given the extent of the updates resulting from the CHUI merge and the team’s efforts to present a flexible, friend chat UI, Preferences > Chat has been extensively updated.

Preferences > Chat has been revised with expanded options for managing all aspects of chat and IMs
Preferences > Chat has been revised with expanded options for managing all aspects of chat and IMs

These changes are apparent from the moment Preferences > Chat is opened, with six new sub-tabs appearing in the panel. Three of these – Translation, Auto-Replace and Spell Checking – replace the button which access these options in earlier releases. The remaining three tabs – Chat, IM & Groups and Logging – are entirely new to this release, and all include options for configuring chat and IM notifications, behaviour, appearance, and more (some of which have been inherited from the old Preferences > Catznip > Chat sub-tab, which has been removed from R9, being surplus to requirements).

The IM & Groups sub-tab helps with configuring chat / IM behaviour, appearance, etc.
The IM & Groups sub-tab helps with configuring chat / IM behaviour, appearance, etc.

Additionally, the spelling checker has been updated to support German, French, Italian and Polish.

Building Updates

Perhaps the most obvious change to Catznip R9 is the arrival of Materials Processing. However, there are other updates as well, including:

  • Windows only:
    • Drag-and-drop textures directly onto a prim face using local textures as the backing store
    • Drag-and-drop uploading of textures
  • Added a “Selection Options” pop-out to thebuildfloater,  grouping all selection related viewer options and including:
    • Select Only Copyable Objects (also added to Build menu > Options)
    • Option to prevent turning towards a newly selected object
  • Option to prevent the avatar’s arm from pointing at a newly selected object
  • Added copy/paste of the different types of texture parameters with three possible scenarios (always on a single object):
    1. Copy all texture faces (which may or may not be identical) => pastes the texture data on matching selected faces
    2. Copy one texture face => pastes the texture data on all selected faces
    3. Copy several texture faces => pastes the texture data on matching selected faces
  • Added pipette for the different types of texture parameters.
    • The Build floater with Selections Options pop-out (l) and Materials (r)
    The Build floater with Selections Options pop-out (l) and Materials (r)

    Camera and Movement Floaters

    The updated Camera and Movement floaters
    The updated Camera and Movement floaters

    Both the Camera and Movement floaters have been refined so they are transparent, rather than opaque, and are more compact. The Camera floater also has a revised layout.

    A slider in Preferences > Colors allows you to adjust the level of transparency / opacity of both floaters.

    Inventory Updates

    This release sees a number of inventory related updates and changes, including:

    • A significant speed improvements when filtering inventory
    • Open in Inventory check box added to the Buy Contents floater + UI layout cleanup
    • Texture tooltip added for inventory items
    • Copy Outfit List to Clipboard is now available when right-clicking any outfit folders in your inventory
    • Option to clear the current inventory filter rather than create a new inventory floater when the shown item is currently filtered
    • Inventory will always show the “Received Items” folder if the inventory’s panel contents are filtered (with a non-default filter)
    • Empty system folders no longer hidden by default (Advanced > Debug setting DebugHideEmptySystemFolders set to FALSE)
    • New option to control how offered inventory is handled while marked as Do not Disturb
      • Pop up a chiclet as normal (default)
      • Auto-accept the offer
      • Auto-decline the offer.

    Notecards / Scripts / Text editors

    These see the following features added to the R9 release:

    • Recovery support for unsaved notecards (embedded items are not preserved)
    • Texture tool tips for embedded notecard items
    • Use the current selection (text, etc.) as the default search string
    • Highlighting of occurrences in the target editor when using the Search/Replace floater
    • New keyboard shortcuts to the script editor menu
      • F1 opens the LSL reference
      • Shift+F1 opens keyboard help
      • Ctrl+G opens the “Go to line” floater.

    In addition, the following behaviours have been revised:

    • When you Go To a line in a script editor, at least three lines above/below the target line will now be visible
    • Case-insensitive search is now enabled by default for notecards, scripts and text editors.

    Preferences

    As well as the updates to the Chat tab, this release sees a number of other updates in Catznip’s Preferences which form a part of ongoing work to overhaul Preferences.

    The Sound and Media tab has been completely overhauled, with new sub-tabs for volume controls and streaming, Sound Alerts, and Voice Chat.

    The Sound Alerts sub-tab panel on the revised Sound and Media tab in Preferences
    The Sound Alerts sub-tab panel on the revised Sound and Media tab in Preferences

    Continue reading “Catznip R9: the cat gets the cream” →

    “Project interesting” viewer reaches release status

    Posted on by Inara Pey

    On Tuesday May 6th, the Lab announced the “Project Interesting”  viewer has finally made it to a release status with the arrival of version 3.7.7.289461 of the viewer as the de facto release version.

    Available since mid-November 2013 as a release candidate viewer, this release represents the last stage in the current work on improving interest list functionality, the code which controls how the data relating to your in-world view is handled by both the server and the viewer. This includes what is sent to the viewer, what is retained by the viewer for reuse and things like the order in which objects are rendered when you log-in to SL or teleport (so that the “interesting” objects which are closer to you or which are particularly large should render first, for example).

    To mark the viewer’s formal release, the Lab has re-issued a video by Torley Linden, originally released when the viewer first made it to release candidate status, which neatly encapsulates the key updates contained within the viewer, and how they relate to server-side changes which have already been implemented.

    Related links

    Kokua 3.7.6: Breakpad, Merchant Outbox and Voice

    Posted on by Inara Pey

    kokua-logoThe Kokua team released version 3.7.6.32681 on Wednesday April 30th, keeping to a roughly monthly release run for the last three experimental and full releases.

    As always, please refer to the Kokua release notes for the full accreditation of any updates mentioned below.

    The new version sees Kokua maintains parity with the Lab’s 3.7.5 and 3.7.6 code base releases, and sees the viewer gain the recent Google Breakpad changes (and fixes for the same from the Lab), as well as the Merchant Outbox fixes and the remaining voice updates for windows and Mac (these libraries ere merged into an earlier release of Kokua, so this release sees the final updates.

    Together, the Voice and Merchant Outbox changes comprise the use of Vivox 4.6.x libraries for improved stability & to address Mac Mavericks issues and fixes for accurately detecting Merchant status & improving Merchant Outbox error recovery.

    Kokua can now display Received Items as a regular inventory folder, allow the pull-up option is also still displayed
    Kokua can now display Received Items as a regular inventory folder, allow the pull-up option is also still displayed

    In addition, the release sees a number of TPV and Kokua team updates, the former notably coming from Firestorm. These comprise:

    • An option to display the Received Items section of the inventory floater as a regular folder
    • Hide empty system folders

    Check boxes for both options can be found in Preferences > Kokua > Inventory. Note that when the Received Items folder is active, the slide-up Received Items bar at the foot of the inventory panel will remain visible, rather than being hidden (as is the case with the likes of Firestorm).

    In addition, the release includes the following updates from the Kokua team:

    • Fixes for several merge regressions from RLVa affecting Kokua functionally
    • Windows: returned functionally of local chat right-click menu music stream title display. This was removed when FmodEx was installed
    • Macintosh: streaming music is now using the FmodEx library and streams appear more reliable than with previously used Quicktime
    • UI enhancements:
      • Fix for the parcel name not changing unless “Show region coordinates” was switched on
      • “Report Abuse” added to right-click context menus for objects and avatars.

    This release doesn’t contain the SSA / AIS v3 updates (which are still only at RC status in the LL viewer). The reason given for this is that there are currently no public RLV / RLVa repositories containing a working merge of sunshine-external the SSA / AISv3 code, and Nicky Perian, the Kokua lead, doesn’t feel he is familiar enough with RLV code to go ahead with his own merge. So expect to see SSA / AIS v3 appear in Kokua in a future release.

    There is a test version of Kokua which is running SSA / AIS v3, but which does not have RLVa, for those who wish to test the SSA / AIS v3 functionality, which is currently running on the three RC channels in Second Life.

    RLV or RLVa?

    Up until now, Kokua has used the RLVa API. However, Nicky P is considering swapping to using Marine Kelley’s original RLV API, on the grounds that it maintains a closer parity with the LL viewer. To this end, he has asked anyone who is aware of anyone of performance differences between RLV and RLVa, to please comment in the Kokua 3.7.6 release notes.

     

    Related Links