The Exodus team released Exodus 13.09.21.1 (Beta) on September 21st, which sees support for materials processing arrive in the viewer.
The release is only available for Windows and Linux, but it sees Exodus come pretty much up to par with the official SL viewer, including the most recent materials fixes and updates which saw light of day as an RC viewer prior to becoming the de facto SL viewer release in week 38. Also included in the release are updates from the recent SL CHUIStorm release, the FMODex updates and the Cocoa updates.
Visual changes to the viewer include the additional texture map options for materials, and an option in the Exodus Preferences floater to enable / disable the replacing of your avatar name with “you” in your chat.
Exodus 13.09.21.1 includes materials processing support (l) and an option to replace your avatar’s name with “you” in your chat window
The installer weighs-in at 35 MB, and installation was for me, as usual, smooth and without incident, including the required Windows extras. One point to note that this release see the Windows installation move from “ExodusViewerBeta” to “ExodusViewer” – so if you have a previous version installed, it will not be overwritten, but can be removed independently of this viewer (just use the uninstaller within the older version’s installation folder). This change is a part of Exodus adopting the Lab’s version update mechanism, becoming the second v3 viewer to do so alongside Kokua.
The release notes give a rather false impression of the amount of work which has gone into the update, but for those who wish to check on what has been included, the viewer’s commit history provides a complete breakdown.
Overall a nice update which brings two versions of the viewer back up to speed. The release notes indicate that this version “will not contain an OS X release”, so I assume Mac users will have to wait for a future release to get back on a par with their fellow Windows and Linux users.
With Server-side Baking / Appearance due to be enabled on the LeTigre Release Candidate Channel on Wednesday July 10th (from which it will gradually roll across the grid), the Exodus team have issued a new version of the popular Exodus viewer. Classified a beta release, the new viewer update has the version number 13.7.9.1, and includes the latest code updates from the Lab.
This means that with this release, Exodus is:
Server-side Baking / Appearance ready
Includes the Lab’s Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI)
However, the release:
Does not include materials processing support
RemovesRLVa support.
CHUI and SSB/A
VHUI now a part of the Exodus viewer
There is not actually much to report here per se, other than both work entirely as expected. CHUI sees the LL integrated chat / IM conversations floater working in Exodus.
Simlarly, SSB/A works exactly as expected on SSB/A-enabled regions, with other avatars rendering correctly in Exodus, and your own avatar rendering correctly to others.
Exodus SSB/A: (l) my avatar on Exodus and my CTA on the SL viewer – both render correctly in Exodus on the Aditi SSB/A test regions. (r) The same agin, but this time my avatar (foreground) on Exodus, as rendering in the SSB/A-capable SL viewer.
That both SSB/A and CHUI do work flawlessly tends to hide the amount of work the Exodus team have put-in getting both ready to go prior to SSB/A being enabled server-side.
Why No Materials and RLVa?
Materials
Both the integration of CHUI and SSB/A capabilities into a v3-based viewer are very large amounts of work (CHUI has something like over 1200 change sets of its own). They therefore require time and effort to implement – and have likely been keeping the Exodus team more than a little busy (on top of some of them being actively engaged in developing the materials capabilities in SL as well as working on other items such as the Mac Cocoa project).
There’s also the fact that while materials doesn’t use CHUI itself, both the materials code and the CHUI code touch on other areas of the viewer code. Therefore, it makes sense for the Exodus team to focus on implementing CHUI first and then merging and cleaning the materials changes sets (which is exactly the order in which the Lab did things), rather than racing to implement materials, only to find those updates impacted at a later date by required CHUI updates.
So for all those hoping to see materials in Exodus – it will doubtless be coming, you’ll just need to wait a little longer.
RLVa Removal
The blog post for the release explains the reasoning behind the removal of RLVa support from Exodus thus:
By its nature and by necessity, RLVa is an extremely invasive patch. We do not have the resources to maintain this code, and it is the primary reason for our lack of updates recently. We hope that this removal enables us to produce more frequent updates going forward and apologise for the inconvenience.
While the loss of RLVa is perhaps to be regretted, how much it is likely to be missed obviously comes down to the number of Exodus users who make use of it, obviously – and it is worth pointing out that RLVa was something of a late arrival to Exodus in the first place, so it may not be that greatly missed.
Other Updates
This release also sees Exodus:
Using Cocoa instead of Carbon on Mac computers
Gain full screen support on Lion
Fain Retina support for the Retina MacBook Pros.
Feedback
This is not an in-depth test of the latest Exodus beta, but a quick spin around the Aditi block. Everything works, as notes, as expected, and the rendering enhancement which have been part and parcel of Exodus for a long time certainly make their presence felt even in a default rough & ready snapshot such as the one grabbed above for the SSB/A comparison.
I didn’t do any performance tests this time around, as I was on Aditi – I’ll save that for another time :). That said, I’ve always found Exodus to be a solid performer on my current hardware, where it has tended to be my “reserve” viewer (along with Dolphin).
This is a very tidy and timely update to Exodus which brings it back to a par with other popular v3 viewers, and perhaps even a little ahead with the Cocoa support. Kudos to the team!
Recent updates to the Exodus viewer have been a little slow in some respects. This is in part hardly surprising – at least one member of the team (Geenz Spad) has been up to his eyeballs in working on the materials processing project. However, other factors – such as real life commitments – have meant that other members of the team have also been unable to focus on the viewer perhaps as much as they would have liked.
As a result of this, both Clix Diesel and Ayamo Nozaki have decided to step aside from lead roles in the project and pass the torch on to others – with Katharine Berry taking over ownership of the project and the role of lead developer. Clix himself made the announcement in an Exodus blog post on Sunday April 21st, which reads:
Hello everyone!
I know it’s been a while since an update but we have some important news to share with you.
I would like to announce Katharine Berry as the new lead developer and owner of the Exodus viewer project!
Exodus has been a passion of Ayamo and myself for just shy of two years now and we have enjoyed leading the project immensely. Originally we built Exodus as a viewer to compliment various Second Life combat scenarios, Exodus has since catered for a wide variety of user and continues to provide a the best viewer experience we possibly can thanks to the skill and dedication of my team. This will never change. Recently we have not been able to focus on viewer development as much as we would like. Ayamo Nozaki will be leaving as our lead developer and passing the torch to Katharine Berry. Katharine is also the ideal candidate to hand ownership of the project, as Ayamo and I cannot spare the time to do so any longer.
Thank you everyone, from Ayamo and me, it’s been a blast!
Exodus remains one of the three viewers I most frequently use, depending upon what I’m doing in-world, so I look forward to seeing what this hand-over brings; I also wish Clix and Ayamo the best for their future endeavours, in-world and elsewhere.
Saturday November 24th saw the next release of Exodus hit the download page, and Ash Qin from the team was kind enough to give me the nod – I confess, I’d lost track of the nightly builds and so have fallen well behind with the viewer’s on-going development – and access to the beta release of the build.
Exodus 12.11.24.1 is based on the Linden 3.4.2 code base, so it includes the majority of the most recent updates from the Lab, including the new Group Services code for managing and editing groups with more than 10K members, and a host of other Linden goodness.
Installation
The Windows installer weighs-in at a touch over 34MB in size and contains absolutely no surprises during the install process – as one would expect. As per usual, I did a completely clean install, which brought me to my first surprise: on start-up Exodus displayed the Steam-related “Create Account” prompt.
No, Exodus isn’t going to Steam.
This doesn’t mean Exodus is heading for Steam a-la the official viewer, just that the Steam code is now part and parcel of the SL beta viewer code, and the Exodus team didn’t see any reason not to merge it into their code, given it is only ever something established users are ever going to see once after a fresh install (and possibly not at all if they don’t perform a clean install or the team moves to an updater system – which is something they are considering).
Pathfinding
This release brings with it pathfinding, which the team had originally hoped to release a lot sooner. This includes not only the build tools associated with pathfinding (Linksets and Characters floaters, attributes in the Build and Object Profile floaters, etc.), but also includes the Navmesh visualisation code, as Exodus becomes the latest viewer to sign-up to the Havok sub-licence agreement with Linden Lab.
An impressive image of Deshima, showing the navmesh visualisation in Exodus
This means that anyone who has been using Exodus to access OpenSim grids via –loginuri will no longer be able to do so when using this release. Similarly, the optional grid selector which can be displayed on the login splash screen only lists Agni (the main grid) and Aditi (the beta grid).
The move to the Havok sub-licence also means that with this release, Exodus moves to the official mesh upload code from LL, rather than using the HACD code which has been in common use within TPVs.
Group Services
Large groups will load and can be edited with this release of Exodus
As mentioned above, Exodus gains the large group management and editing code from Linden Lab with this release, allowing groups with 10K or more members to load in the Group floater and which allow group owners and officers to edit and manage very large groups.
Again, just as a point of reference for those unfamiliar with the new code changes: these do not relate to group chat or anything related to improving group chat. That is an entirely separate project within Linden Lab (and one which may not be being actively progressed while other work is being undertaken). This is purely about using HTTP protocols (rather than the old UDP) to bring more stability to the downloading, viewing and editing of very large groups.
Viewer Updates
Alongside the updates and fixes from LL, Exodus 12.11.24.1 gets a number of updates all of its own:
The Flickr option on the Snapshot floater now includes an option to include the parcel name / SLurl in the description
You can now Paste as Link’ and Copy as Link using the right-click or CTRL-SHIFT-V and CTRL-SHIFT-C using Exodus’ built in “pastebin” functionality
A Copy as Link button added to the About Second Life Viewer floater, allowing the information in the floater to be viewed via the web
A Copy Key option added to the avatar right-click context menu, allowing for easy copying of the Avatar Key.
Two new options for Exodus: the include location option for Flickr uploads on the Snapshot floater, and Copy as Link on the About Second Life Viewer
Fixes and Changes
Exodus 12.11.24.1 also includes a number of fixes and changes from the team:
MOTD should work now on OS X
Added copy key to gear menu for avatar inspection panels
Colouring of certain elements
BMP cursors on Linux
Higher compression of LZMA packages on Linux
Curl on OS X no longer defaults to trying to use IPv6 in Curl (related to MOTD issue).
Performance and Feedback
Performance-wise Exodus 12.11.24.1 again gives very similar results on my usual review system (see the panel on the right sidebar of this page) as recent viewer releases I’ve taken a look at in the last month:
Deferred off:
Ground: 28-29 fps
370 metres: 36-38 fps
2875 metres: 43-45 fps
Deferred on + lighting set to Sun/Moon + Projectors; ambient occlusion off:
Ground: 9 fps
370 metres:15 fps
2875 metres: 18 fps
Like like Catznip R7 and the recent Firestorm beta, these figures dropped only very slightly (just 1 fps on average) if I also activated ambient occlusion in deferred; again marking the fact that for me, things seem to have improved recently over the start of the year.
Compared to other recently releases, this one from Exodus is relatively small and compact – which doesn’t lessen its overall impact; once again it places Exodus back among the leaders of the V3-based TPV pack. There are still a couple of things I’d like to see, one of them being my usual request of TPVs in general: the ability to left / right range the toolbar buttons at the bottom (or top for those that use that space) of the screen. Only one does it so far, and it is really handly having the option.
Nevertheless, nothing should be taken away from the Exodus team, offering as they do a pleasing and worthwhile update.
It’s been a while, but the Exodus team released a new version of the viewer on Thursday August 9th. Version 12.08.09.1 is liable to be the first of two updates to Exodus this month (the second being aimed at incorporating the pathfinding tools for those keen to get to grips with pathfinding in Second Life). This release is the first to be made since Katharine Berry recently joined the Exodus team, and she’s been engaged in a number of the features presented with this release.
The 12.08.09.1 release (also referred to as Beta 8), brings with it a range of updates, including:
Ability to upload images from the snapshot floater to Flickr
New linear, Renhard and filmic tone mapping
New avatar troubleshooting menu
Ability to mute group chat
Inclusion of floating point “Normalized Blinn-Phong” shading LUT for deferred rendering
Latest RLVa support
Various UI updates including:
Vertical chat tabs (from Catznip)
Web browser toolbar button
Additional slider in the Quick Preferences floater for adjusting your own sound locally
Request teleport button added to IM windows
Merge with the SL Viewer 3.3.3 codebase, bringing with it:
Merchant Outbox support
Local Textures (by Vaalith Jinn)
Graded shadow support
Various fixes to the mesh queue
This article has been written using the Windows release of 12.08.09.1, and is intended to be an overview of the core updates rather than an in-depth review of the Exodus viewer (see articles list at the end of this items for further information on Exodus).
Download and Install
The Windows downloader weighs-in at a modest 28.4Mb. Installation on my system was fast and smooth (as per usual, this was a clean install for me). Start-up revealed the familiar Exodus blue sky screen with core information (particularly updates from the Grid Status Page) along the bottom. No implementation of the official splash screen here. However, if you do have issues trying to run Exodus following installation – and in particular get error messages relating to .dll problems, you might try visiting the Exodus FAQ page and following the link therein.
Logging-in revealed the familiar Exodus default screen layout, with buttons to the left and button of the screen, which can still be repositioned to the left or right, top or bottom of the screen.
Avatar Troubleshooting
Avatar Troubleshooting takes a leaf from the Firestorm book and offers three options for dealing with avatar issues. These can be found in a menu under Me->Troubleshooting and comprise:
Reload My Avatar Data: sends a request to the SL servers to download your avatar data once more. Useful where you’re seeing outfit changes but other’s aren’t (often indicative that something is going wrong within your computer, rather than anything at the server end)
Rebake my avatar textures: performs a normal local rebake, with the data sent to the server for distribution
Reset my avatar: Ruths your avatar to default shape and clothing, allowing you to rebuild it in the event of a drastic error.
Toolbar Buttons
This release of Exodus includes two additional buttons, Web, which opens the viewer’s built-in web browser, and Panic. The latter is a hang-over from testing nightly builds and debugging. As such, it is not intended for general use and may be removed or re-purposed in the next release. It is not recommended you employ the button, as it is intended to crash the viewer and generate a crash log.
Snapshots to Flickr
Flickr is a popular medium for SL photographers, so having an option to save pictures directly to it is likely to be a benefit to many. With this release, Firestorm obtains Katharine Berry’s code (Katharine also recently joined the Exodus team) to enable snapshots to be uploaded directly from the viewer to a Flickr account.
The option is presented as an additional button on the snapshot floater. The first time you click on this, it will cause a pop-up to be displayed:
Setting-up Flickr to accept snapshots from Exodus
Clicking on YES will take you to the Flickr authorisation page, which will outline the possible risks of connecting Exodus to Flickr (a standard alert page, common when using inter-application authorisation). Read the warning carefully, and if happy, confirm yo wish to proceed (refusing cancels the link and denies Exodus the ability to upload to Flickr).
Confirming that you’re happy to proceed will display a code number on the Flickr web-page. Type this into the authorisation pop-up displayed in Exodus. This will activate the link and allow you to take your snapshot and send it to Flickr. Again, note the authorisation process only has to be completed the first time you attempt to upload a snapshot directly to Flickr, thereafter snaps will be sent to your Flickr account without hindrance.
As I recently reported, the Exodus team have been hard at work on the Viewer, obtaining TPV Directory listing status as well as working on a wide range of new features and options within their Viewer.
This is now nearing completion, and as the team work towards their next formal release, they’ve implemented a new nightly build programme for the Viewer. As the name suggests, this will feature daily builds of the Viewer featuring the very latest options, functions and updates, ready for wider testing. In contacting me about the builds, Geenz Spad explained their purpose thus: “We want to get more people testing our nightly builds of Exodus as we near another stable release; those builds are updated almost on a daily basis … to get new features we’re experimenting with out to the public faster for feedback before they make it into a stable release.”
As daily builds there are a few points worth mentioning:
No support is provided – so please do not use them as your primary viewer
There will be issues both in terms of functionality and stability
Please do give constructive feedback to the team on any problems you have, crashes you experience etc.
If you’d like to help the team work towards future releases of Exodus, you can find out more by reading their blog post on the builds and by following the links below:
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 