Tag: Black Dragon Viewer

On 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 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.

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”).

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).

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.

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.

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

• Black Dragon download page
• Black Dragon 2.3.9.8 release notes
• NiranV Dean’s website

 

NiranV Dean released Black Dragon 2.3.9.7 (or 3.7.5.31492, if you go via Help > About Black Dragon / the log-in splash screen) on Tuesday April 22nd.  The release marks Black Dragon’s completion of the third-party viewer self-certification process and inclusion in the Third-party Viewer Directory.

The release brings Black Dragon up to parity with the Lab’s 3.7.? code base (I assume 3.7.6, but this is not made clear in the release notes), and includes a number of updates listed as:

• Added: ‘Godray’ effect, without switch yet
• Added: Machinima Background texture
• Changed: Disabled Show Title info in Sound tab
• Changed: Updated to Tofu’s latest BlurLight shader. Doesn’t use newly added RenderShadowGaussian…
• Changed: Allow minimum Sun Size down to 0.01.

Of these, the “Godray” addition is perhaps the most interesting, adding as it does rays of sunlight to the sky which, under certain lighting conditions appear to be very effective. The option is still a work-in-progress, and so there is currently no toggle / switch in the UI for enabling / disabling it (it is off by default) – expect one to be added in due course as the work is finished-off.

However, for those comfortable with editing shader files, Niran has provided notes on how to enable the function via a thread on SL Universe. I confess, the instructions didn’t work for me – which is probably more down to operator error than anything – but the images supplied by Niran look pretty impressive, as does a video he’s produced of the capability, which comes from the mind of Tofu Buzzard.

Niran is currently working on a UI refresh designed to offer a minimalist approach to displayed information while retaining ease-of-use and maximising the in-world viewing area. No time frame for this appearing in a release is available at present, but once it does appear, I’ll hopefully be able to provide a more detailed review, together with a better look at the “Godray” functionality. For now, and in the case of the latter, I’ll leave you with Niran’s video.

Related Links

• Black Dragon download page
• Black Dragon 2.3.9.7 release notes
• NiranV Dean’s website

Sunday February 9th saw the Black Dragon viewer updated to version 2.3.9.3. Dramatically referred to as an “emergency” update, the new version is another interim release, with major changes on the horizon as the viewer moves ever closer to the 2.4 version number.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure quite what warrants this being called an “emergency” release. The quoted reasons for the update (HTTP and Fitted Mesh) haven’t exactly been hidden away by the Lab, but have been talked about openly for a while – and the code (while still being tweaked and banged on in the case of Fitted Mesh, admittedly),  has been available for poking-at. But anyaway, suffice it to say the new version is here, comprising a lot of nips and tucks, as listed in the change log with the release notes.

This isn’t intended as a full review, but more an overview of key changes.

The first of these is that the viewer is up-to-date with the Lab’s 3.7.0 code base, and so includes Fitted Mesh, which the Lab announced as officially released on February 10th.

Niran is a keen gamer, and as such put considerable work into his first viewer in adding options and controls other gamers would find familiar, such as offering more shooter game style camera placement, etc.

With this release of black Dragon, he’s put effort into enhancing the ability to map the viewer’s options and functions into game controllers – most notably the Xbox 360 controller. In carrying out this work, he notes:

• Works with up to 16 buttons (for other controllers or joysticks)
• Adds the ability to map zoom in/out/default, roll left/right, jump, crouch, toggle flycam, toggle run, toggle fly and Mouselook to available buttons
• Certain mappings only work in either Avatar / Flycam or Build mode.

A video has been produced showing avatar movement using a game controller.

In another move to provide a game-like feel, Niran has duplicated the click-and-hold left mouse button and then use the mouse to rotate the camera / move your avatar to the right mouse button, as demonstrated in another video, which demonstrates the capability in conjunction with using the movement keys.

As noted, this is a duplication of the original left mouse button click / hold functionality, which can still be used by those who are already used to it.

Alongside of both of these, although not directly related to it, he has also added the option to disallow using Mouse-wheel to change values in spinners. Prevents some nasty problems with hover tips accidentally getting set to infinite.

In lin with recent LL RC and release viewers, this Release of Black Dragon includes a good number of MAINT, STORM and OPEN fixes and contributions  including STORM-1980, the updated region restart message and STORM-1981, the updates to avatar tracking beacons. All of these updates, together with Niran’s own fixes, additions, changes and tweaks can be found in the release change log noted above.

Related Links

• Black Dragon download page
• Black Dragon 2.3.9.3 release notes
• NiranV Dean’s website

Tuesday November 5th saw the release of Black Dragon 2.3.7 Maintenance 2, the second release for the viewer in as many weeks, the previous being (wait for it) 2.3.6 Maintenance 1. Since it’s been another two months since I last looked at Black Dragon, which is still officially in its Alpha phase of development, I decided the arrival of 2.3.7 was as good a reason as any to take another peek at what Niran has been up to.

And it is actually rather a lot, with each of the iterations of Black Dragon appearing since 2.3.1 both building on the basic LL v3.x look and feel while adding-in both more TPV features and Niran’s own unique take on the viewer’s appearance and layout.

• Version 2.3.2 saw the inclusion of a host of CHUI, NORSPEC (materials), Cocoa updates, bug fixes and maintenance updates from Linden Lab, together with the return of Tofu Buzzard’s screen space reflections and a lot of general clean-up
• Version 2.3.3 was to include further LL code updates and fixes, some updates to Niran’s Machinima Sidebar, and further rendering / graphics tweaks
• Version 2.3.5 saw the re-introduction of RLVa, complete with a dedicated Preferences tab.

As noted above, both release 2.3.6 and 2.3.7 are classified as “maintenance” releases, planned by Niran to further enhance the work started in version 2.3.4, which introduced the first phase of overhauling the Preferences floater.  Given this, what follows is intended to be an overview of the most recent updates to Black Dragon, with a particular focus on the Preferences work, rather than an in-depth review.

Preferences

With Niran’s Viewer, Niran opted to go for a fairly radical overhaul of the Preferences options, presenting them as an overlay, rather than within a floating panel. It was a novel approach, and one which, while making better use of screen space, could also be disconcerting to users coming to it the first time, particularly when trying to find settings, etc. In the re-working of Black Dragon, he’s gone for something less radical and potentially less unsettling to users familiar with the “traditional” approach to the Preferences floater, but which still offers an interesting take on how Preferences can be presented.

The first noticeable change is that Niran has used headings to split the various Preferences tabs into definable sections. The result is a layout which tends to be more logically ordered and which the eye tends to follow more easily.

The other obvious change is that rather than using additional sub-tabs within a given section of Preferences, Niran has opted to use a slider on the right of the given tab, allowing users to scroll up and down through options in order to display them. It’s an interesting approach to take, and one that is certainly as valid as the use of sub-tabs; however, having to scroll through an extensive list of options such as with the Display tab perhaps isn’t quite as efficient as being able to see tabbed headings at-a-glance in order to switch between them.

There are other touches as well which set Black Dragon apart in terms of Preferences presentation. Within the Display tab (Graphics), for example, Niran opts to use drop-down option lists rather than sliders for various settings. This is again a carry-over from Niran’s Viewer, and whether one likes it or not is liable to be a matter of personal taste. To me, being able to set the rendering quality for something like in-world objects to a value between Low and Ultra feels more intuitively user-friendly than adjusting a slider to an arbitrary point somewhere between 1 and 4, or 0 and 1, or 16 through 120.

Continue reading “Black Dragon viewer: progressing nicely” →