On Monday March 15th, 2021, the Firestorm team released version 6.4.13 of their viewer.
Regarded somewhat as a maintenance update more than a major release, the primary am of 6.4.13 is to hopefully move Firestorm into its quarterly cadence of releases.
That said, as well as fixes and updates, this release includes a number of additional and new capabilities added by the Firestorm team, and these form the focus of this overview.
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 6.4.13.
Again, please refer to the Firestorm 6.4.13 release notes for additional details of all changes and updates in this release.
Linden Lab Derived Updates
This release brings Firestorm up to parity with the Lab’s 6.4.12.555248 Dawa Maintenance RC, which focused on bug fixes. This viewer became the Lab’s default viewer on February 1st, 2021.
Menu Updates
Avatar Menu: Recreate LSL Bridge
If you encounter issues with the Firestorm Bridge, you can now recreate it via Avatar → Avatar Health → Recreate LSL Bridge.
Note: you must be on a script-enabled region / parcel for this to work.
World Menu: Bulk Windlight Import to EEP
With Firestorm 6.4.13, it is now possible to bulk import Windlight .XML files directly to inventory as EEP settings / assets.
Go to World → Environment → Bulk Import
Select the EEP type you’d like to use for the import process (days, skies, water).
A file selection window will open. Use this to navigate to the folder on your computer containing the corresponding Windlight .XML files.
Use SHIFT-left-click / CTRL-left-click to highlight the .XML files you wish to import and click Open at the bottom of the window.
The window will close and the import process will import the .XML files and convert them to corresponding EEP settings and assets using the original Windlight file name, placing them in the Settings folder in your inventory.
Bulk import of Windlight .XML file to EEP settings / assets
Side notes:
You must ensure you select the correct import type / .XML fly type for this to work. For example: if you click on Skies, you must import .XML static sky files. Selecting the wrong import option or the wrong file type will result in a file validation error.
Remember that the viewer already includes around 200 of the more popular Windlight .XML files already converted to EEP settings .
These can be found in the Library Environments folder, and can be copied to your Settings folder (or a folder of your choice) in inventory and used from there.
It may be easier to check this folder for the more popular Windlights, as you may find those you have on your computer.
World Menu: Asset Blacklist Sound Button
The Asset Blacklist floater now includes a Play Sound button. When a sound item you’re added to the list is highlighted, the button will be enabled and can be used to hear the sound in question.
Build Menu: Mesh Uploader
The Mesh Uploader now includes a new tab: Preview Settings.
Mesh Uploader Preview Settings
Preferences Updates
Move & View: Avatar Rotation Speed
Movement → Avatar Rotation Turn Speed slider: alters the rate at which your avatar responds to turning. 0-100 as estimated percentage of the maximum turn rate. Note that high values will be snappy/jerky.
User Interface: Use Small Camera Window
With the introduction of Camera Presets, the standard camera floater was revised to include buttons for setting and using the Presets capability. However, some have found this revised floater intrusive.
When checked, Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Use Small Camera Window will replace the revised camera floater with the “old” pre-Camera Preset camera floater. Unchecking the option will display the revised window floater once more.
Using the “old” camera floater
Notes:
The revised camera floater can be resized to something approaching that of the “old” floater, for those who would like to retain the new floater but wish to reduce the amount of screen space it takes up.
If, for any reason, you revert to an earlier version of Firestorm (while available) with this option enabled, the next time you use Firestorm 6.4.13, you will have both versions of the camera floater displayed. Toggle the setting to correct.
User Interface: Time Format
Preferences → User Interface → Top Bars → Time Format: a drop-down allowing you to set the preferred time format (12 hour or 24 hour notation, etc.), as displayed in the top right corner for the viewer.
On Wednesday, May 27th, 2020, Firestorm released version 6.3.9.58205 of their viewer.
This release brings Firestorm up-to-date with all official viewer releases prior to the EEP update, and includes assorted updates and fixes from upstream of that release from the Lab, plus fixes and improvements from the Firestorm team, including a lot of OpenSim updates.
However, it should be noted that this release does not include EEP (Environmental Enhancement Project). As such, this is perhaps best seen as a maintenance release to prepare the way for a later EEP release.
As always, the focus is on those updates that may be of particular general interest, rather than trying to cover absolutely everything. Readers are referred to the release notes for a full list of updates / fixes and all associated credits.
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 6.3.9.
Again, please refer to the Firestorm 6.3.9 release notes for details of specific Lab-derived fixes for this release.
Viewer Blocks
Note that with this release:
Firestorm versions 6.0.2 for Second Life and 6.0.2 for OpenSim will both be blocked from logging into the Second Life grid in three weeks time.
6.0.2 for OpenSim will not be blocked from accessing OpenSim Grids.
Lab Derived Updates
The version of Firestorm brings the viewer to parity with the Linden Lab 6.3.8 code base. This means Firestorm now includes all viewer releases up to and including the Ordered Shutdown updates, which should reduce the frequency of the viewer crashing on shut-down, and the Premium enhancements viewer (version 6.3.8.538264), which includes updates specifically for Premium Plus relating to fees, etc, and which may appear in places in the viewer. However, with regards to the latter, it is important to note that:
The precise benefits for Premium Plus have yet to be confirmed.
Firestorm 6.3.9.580205 includes a number of updates / fixes for the client-side AO system, including:
AO floater should no longer appear empty if open on logging-in to the viewer (see FIRE-29192).
The AO should now be more robust when in or leaving Linden Water:
A swim animation should no longer play when leaving Linden Water; avatar should transition to flying animation (see: FIRE-6605 / FIRE-8099).
The flying hover animation (for included in an AO) should no longer play when pausing swimming when underwater (see FIRE-15350).
Transitions between animations should now be far smoother, as double start / stops should no longer occur.
Animations should not longer stick on cycling (particularly sits / ground sits) See: FIRE-14925.
Additional fixes for sitting, smart sit and region crossings:
After sitting, disabling the client AO should not longer place your avatar in a default standing pose whilst still seated (see FIRE-15059).
Turning on the AO sits should no longer fail to turn off the sit animation when standing once more (see FIRE-16230 / FIRE-22471).
Tabbing out of the AO name field should set the AO name if newly edited – no need to press ENTER to apply the new name (see FIRE-29078).
The Default check box should no longer become active when the currently-open AO set is already the default for an avatar (see FIRE-29101).
Menu and Preferences Updates
Avatar menu → Avatar Health → Scripts:
Clicking on the help icon (“?”) in the top-right of the scripts floater now correctly opens the Firestorm wiki page about the floater, rather than the Script Information help page dealing with in-world object script information.
Pick Radius has been updated to read Pick Radius Colour, to make the option’s function clearer.
Both the Pick Radius Colour swatch and distance / opacity slider now have tool tips to explain their functions.
Mini-map updates: Renamed Pick Radius option (1) and new tool tips for colour picker and the distance / opacity slider (2 – with the colour swatch tool tip shown)
Preferences → User Interface → 2D Overlay:
The Group Notices and Chiclets in Top Right check box has been replaced by radio buttons offering a choice of top or bottom right to display group notices and chiclets (changing location still requires a viewer restart to take effect).
New radio buttons to define the location for displaying group notices and chiclets
Appearance Updates
Jellydolls: if an avatar is Jellydolled even though the avatar is below your Maximum Complexity setting, it is because the avatar’s texture area is above the maximum texture area limit (set via the RenderAutoMuteSurfaceAreaLimit Debug setting). Firestorm will therefore display their “Texture Area” number in red in their name tag (see FIRE-23495).
Inspect Own Attachments: a new option to inspect your own attachments has been added to the avatar right-click context menu / pie menu. Presents the same information as inspect attachments on other avatars. (see FIRE-23987).
You can now inspect attachments on your own avatar as well as on other avatars / inspect in-world objects
It should now be possible to detach temporary attachments from Appearance → Wearing tab.
It should now be no longer possible to wear more than one physics layer.
Inventory Updates
Protected Folders: a new option to prevent accidental drag / drop or deletion of inventory folders.
Right-click on an inventory folder and select Protect from the context menu.
Folder is now protected, and will display “(protected) alongside it.
Select the folder, right-click and select Unprotect to remove protection.
All protected folders in inventory can be summarised in the Protected Folders floater (Avatar → Protected Folders).
Double clicking on a folder name in the Protected Folders floater will automatically highlight it in Inventory, allowing you to quickly locate any protected folder.
Note: sub-folders and objects in a Protected folder can still be deleted or drag / dropped.
The Protect (/Unprotect) folder option in the inventory context menu (l), and the Protect Folders floater (r)
Uploading an image or saving a snapshot should no longer cause Inventory to jump from the recent tab jumps to the main tab (see: FIRE-22943 and BUG-225229).
It should now be possible to copy / paste into outfits folders in inventory.
Possible fix for attachments randomly ending up in inventory Lost & Found folder. This hopefully fixes FIRE-23364 and BUG-228813.
The outmoded Merchant Outbox system folder should now be deletable with this release.
On Monday, September 30th, 2019, Firestorm released version 6.3.2.58052 of their viewer.
This release features the awaited support for Linden Lab’s Bakes on Mesh capability, together with a number of Lab-derived updates and updates from the Firestorm Team.
Please note that this update is for Second Life only – see below for more.
As per usual, this article provides an overview of the more visible updates in the release. Please refer to the release notes for a full list of updates and all associated credits. Also, note that this update means that version 5.1.7.55786 will be blocked from logging in to the Second Life grid in the near future – check the Firestorm blog for updates.
Why No OpenSim Version?
Jessica Lyon, project lead for Firestorm, recently blogged on the situation regarding OpenSim, and some of the steps the team are having to reverse as well as to take in order to offer some level of support for OpenSim unless they can obtain an OpenSim developer to assist with the viewer. For details see OpenSim the Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
At that time, Jessica had been hoping to provide OpenSim support “as is” with future releases of Firestorm – and had planned this to be the case with this release. However, a major issue was found with this release that could result in OpenSim regions crashing.
This will take time to resolve – hence no OpenSim version with this release. Instead, Firestorm will continue to offer version 6.0.2.56680 for OpenSim users. As the 6.3.2.58052 release installs separately to 6.0.2.56680, both versions can be run side-by-side on the same computer for those wishing to access both Second Life and OpenSim.
The Usual Before We Begin
As per my usual preamble:
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 6.3.2.
Please refer to the official release notes for a full breakdown and changes, updates and credits associated with this release.
Again, please refer to the Firestorm 6.3.2 release notes for details of specific Lab-derived fixes for this release.
Lab Derived Updates
The version of Firestorm brings the viewer to parity with the Linden Lab 6.3.1 code base, with some cherry-picked updates from upstream release candidate versions.
Bakes on Mesh
Simply put, Bakes on Mesh (BoM) allows system clothing layers as used with the “classic” Second Life system avatar – skins, tattoos, underwear, shirt and jacket layers – to be applied to mesh bodies and heads, and without (necessarily) the need for additional applier systems.
The system requires mesh bodies and heads to be “BoM enabled” – and many creators have already updated their products, or are in the process of updating their products to support Bakes on Mesh. In addition, some applier makers are producing applier systems that leverage Bakes on Mesh to apply wearables to mesh bodies and heads – although these may be limited in some respects due to differences between how skin textures and mesh bodies are made).
Through Bakes on Mesh, Linden Lab hopes:
Users can avoid the need to use appliers, but can add wearables to their mesh avatar directly from inventory.
Creators will be able to simplify avatar mesh bodies and heads by removing the need for some of the “onion” layers. This should – if done – reduce the rendering complexity for bodies and heads, thus hopefully improving people’s SL experience (as avatars won’t be quite so resource intensive or require quite so much “assembly time” when encountering them on logging-on or after teleporting somewhere).
Note that Bakes on Mesh support is required to both use the BoM capability and to correctly view mesh avatars using BoM.
Bakes on Mesh adds new options for applying suitable textures to the baking channels for application on a mesh body by the Bake Service
For more detailed information on Bakes on Mesh, please refer to the following links:
Note cards can now be edited using an external editor. Firestorm has adopted this as follows:
Select your preferred editor:
Go to Preferences → Firestorm → Build 1 → External Editor
Click Browse alongside the External Editor text entry field.
Use the picker to navigate to your preferred text editor and select its .EXE / launcher.
Click OK
The path to the editor should now be displayed in the text field.
This generally only has to be done once, unless you opt to change your preferred editor.
You can now set an external editor when writing / editing note cards
To use the external editor:
Create / open a note card for editing.
Click on the Edit button in the bottom left of the floater.
Your external editor will open and load the text.
Edit the text as required, and save using the external editor.
The edited text will be uploaded to the note card and saved in it.
Notes:
There is no charge applied for the upload and saving to the note card.
Rich text editing (bold, italic, indentation, etc) used within the external editor will be ignored and the text converted to plain text for saving to the note card.
Other Lab Updates of Note
Ability to duplicate a group role – allows you to duplicate a group role so that the copied role has the same permissions and you can just give the copied role a different title (see: BUG-226986).
Open the group profile → Members & Roles → Roles → Left click on a role to select it → Click the Copy Role button
Animesh objects not being highlighted when viewing objects owned by users in About Land fixed (see: BUG-227240).
Animesh objects should now be easier to select (see: BUG-226860).
Depth mode snapshots no longer broken when snapshot size is set to anything above current window size (see: BUG-227191).
Scoreboards and visitor trackers broken by the last CEF update should not longer be broken (see: BUG-226704).
Viewer-side support for playback of sound files up to 30s in length
Note this feature is awaiting simulator support to work.
The ability to share photos & post to Facebook has been removed from the viewer (see: BUG-225205).
This has been broken at the Facebook end for some time, with no sign of being fixed.
Build → Texture → Align Planar Faces should now work on normal or specular maps (see: BUG-6489).
Under Help → Report Abuse, Gaming Policy Violation has been revised to Skill Gaming Policy Violation for clarity.
Firestorm Updates
Link to Discord
6.3.2.58052 includes the ability to link your Second Life account with your Discord account. Once connected, Discord will show your Second Life on-line status & session length, and optionally, your user name and location in SL.
Discord floater
Notes:
This capability only works with the Discord client – it does not work with the Discord web pages.
To work, you must have the Discord client running when attempting to link to it from Firestorm.
Both Discord and Firestorm must be running with the same access level (note: it is not recommended you run discord in Admin mode).
To link you SL and Discord accounts:
Go to Comm → Discord …
The Discord floater opens.
In the floater you can opt to:
Automatically display you are using Second Life / Firestorm whenever you log-in to the viewer.
Display your Second Life user name.
Select whether or not you wish to display your location in Second Life, or, if opting to show your location, opt to only display it according to the maturity rating of the region you are in.
Create a list of region names you do not wish to have displayed by Discord when you are visiting them, regardless of any maturity rating set in the panel.
When you have set your preferences, click the Connect … button.
Once connected, you can disconnect from Discord at any time by displaying the panel and clicking Disconnect …
Avatar, Appearance and Inventory
Attachment auto-refresh: Firestorm 6.3.2.58052 adds a timer for automatically refreshing attachments when an attempt is made to kill them after a teleport / region change. It is designed to help resolve issues where your attachments are invisible to observers after a teleport or region change, and provides the same functionality as the manual Avatar → Avatar Health → Refresh Attachments (Alt-Shift-R).
Optionally, if the debug setting FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixReport is set to TRUE, Firestorm reports attachments that were attempted to get detached during a teleport or region crossing to nearby chat, followed by reporting “Refreshing attachments…” to nearby chat when the auto-refresh starts.
Profile Links to Force Appearance Change: it has been possible for users to put obfuscated links (e.g. “Photo of me in RL”) in their profile floater that, when clicked by another user, would replace outfit with one of the default outfits from the inventory library.
With this update, such links will no longer work, and the obfuscated link will display as “Wear Inventory Folder”. This matches a similar fix included in the Linden Lab Legacy Profiles folder. See also: FIRE-24262.
Fixes:
Removal of the restriction on adding system layers with identical asset UUIDs at the same time (see: FIRE-24334).
LookAt target clamping no longer causes your avatar eyes to cross (see: FIRE-24175).
The Firestorm Animation Overrider should now work correctly with child prim sits.
General Updates of Note
Movement at region crossing: this release fixes the issue of region crossing Predict option (Preferences → Move & View → Movement at Region Crossing) behaving like Stop (see: FIRE-24184).
The option Use HTTP For Receiving Textures has been removed from the SL-only version of the viewer’s Preferences.
This option forced the viewer to switch from UDP texture fetching to HTTP.
As Second Life no longer uses UDP for asset fetching (including textures), the option is no longer required for the SL version of the viewer, thus prompting its removal (see: FIRE-24256).
Payment confirmation is now skipped if paying yourself (e.g. paying your own tip jar) – see FIRE-24208.
Also fixed a case where the payment confirmation notification would not be shown if the amount would be exactly the remaining L$ balance.
FMOD Studio updated to version 2.00.03.
RLV updated to RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.2.1 / RLVa v2.2.0.58052.
Feedback
I actually don’t have a lot to report; I’ve been using the Bakes on Mesh betas for some time, and found the BoM functionality works fine after some early hiccups. One or two of the early beta gave some crashes for me, but the 6.3.2.58051/58052 versions (the latter including a minor update from 58051) have between them been stable – although I’ve only had the 58052 version installed for the time it has taken me to write this review.
On Monday, July 15th, 2019, Firestorm released version 6.2.4.57588 of their viewer.
However please note that this release is for Second Life only.
Essentially a maintenance update, Firestorm 6.2.4.57588 brings the viewer up to parity with the official viewer, adding a range of fixes, improvements and updates from both Linden Lab and via the Firestorm team. The major new feature for this update is the Estate Access Management options.
As such, this release paves the way for Firestorm to be able to adopt the Lab’s Bakes On Mesh and Environment Enhancement Project, once these have in turn been released by Linden Lab.
As per usual, this article provides an overview of the more visible updates in the release. Please refer to the release notes for a full list of updates and all associated credits. Also, note that this update means that version 5.0.11.53634 will be blocked from logging in to the Second Life grid in about three weeks.
A small personal note: my apologies to Firestorm users who may have been directed to this post by the Firestorm team’s release announcement or the Firestorm 6.2.457588 release notes and were unable to find it. My ISP suffered a major (8+ hour) outage some 90 minutes before the release was made, preventing me from uploading and posting this overview.
Why A Second Life Only Release?
As noted above, Firestorm 6.2.4.57588 is for Second Life only. This is because Firestorm are changing how they support Second Life and OpenSim grids. You can read the full details in the official Firestorm blog post Second Life and OpenSim are No Longer Joined at the Hip, but in short, and in the future:
The Firestorm code is forked into two repositories: Second Life and OpenSim.
The Second Life dedicated viewer’s grid manager will only offer Agni and Aditi (SL main and beta grids).
The OpenSim dedicated viewer’s grid manager will NOT offer Second Life grids.
If you wish to access both OpenSim and Second Life, you will have to install both versions of Firestorm
the two versions will install entirely independently to one another and will not share settings or cache, so they will not conflict with each other.
To assist is identifying the two differernt grid versions, the Firestorm downalod pages has been changes to clearly differentiate between Second Life and OpenSim.
The revised Firestorm grid download selections
Note that at the time of writing, the OpenSim download page points to Firestorm 6.0.2.56680, which still works on both SL and OpenSim, and will use the same settings folders as 6.2.4. This will change with the next Firestorm update.
The Usual Before We Begin
As per my usual preamble:
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 6.2.4.
Please refer to the official release notes for a full breakdown and changes, updates and credits associated with this release.
Lab Derived Updates
Firestorm 6.2.4.57588 brings the Firestorm viewer up to the current (at the time of writing) Linden Lab release viewer, version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer promoted on June 18th, 2019.In addition, this release includes some upstream fixes from current LL RC viewers, such as the HiDPI retina display support on Mac systems (Love Me Render RC).
Please refer to the Firestorm 6.2.4 release notes for details of specific Lab-derived fixes for this release.
Estate Access Management (EAM)
It has long been the case that the lists for managing access to a region / estate have been crammed into the General tab of the Region / Estate floater (World > Region / Estate or ALT-R). This has made the management of these lists – particularly the Banned list – difficult when reaching large numbers.
The Estate Access Management (EAM) project was introduced by Linden Lab to address the various shortfalls with the presentation of these list, through both back-end changes and a refactoring of the Region / Estate floater. Firestorm release 6.2.4.57588 includes the updated viewer UI, allowing estate owners and officers to make use of the improved tools.
In particular, the EAM moves the access control elements of the Region / Estate viewer away from the General tab and into their own dedicated tab (show below).
Estate Access Management: as they have previously appeared (left) and as they are under EAM (right) – note: user names have been redacted from this lists shown
In terms of adding or removing names and groups, the new Access sub-tabs work in much the same way as the list boxes in previous releases. However, with the new design, additional functionality is added to some of the lists:
The Banned list additionally records:
The last date on which a banned individual logged-in to Second Life (to assist with housekeeping the list – if an account hasn’t been used in X months or years, why keep it on the list?).
The date on which an individual was banned.
The name of the estate officer / region holder who implemented the ban.
The Banned tab can be sorted into ascending / descending order by banned name, date last logged in, date banned, or by person banning them. Click on the column title to sort.
The Banned list provides more functionality: search, re-ordering, date banned, who did the banning (only applicable for banned implemented after the EAM back-end was deployed by Linden Lab earlier in 2019, pre-existing bans will have “n/a” in the new columns, as indicated by the Banned By column in this image. Note that names have been redacted from this list
The Estate Managers, Allowed and Allowed Groups tabs can be sorted into ascending / descending order by name. Click on the column title to sort.
The Allowed Groups, Allowed and Banned tabs all include a search option.
The number of allowed Estate Managers is increased from 10 EMs to 15 EMs – again in response to many requests from region holders.
On Sunday, February 17th, 2019, Firestorm release version 6.0.2.56680 of their viewer, marking the official release of Animesh support within Firestorm.
This release is essentially a follow-on to the Animesh Early Access release made in December 2018.
As I covered this in Firestorm 6.0.1: Animesh Early Access, aside from highlighting some of the more user-visible updates in that release, this article provides information on those updates specific to Firestorm 6.0.2.
Please use the table of contents above right to jump to any specific topic of interest. Full details of all changes, and contributor credits can be found in the official release notes.
The Usual Before We Begin
As per my usual preamble:
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 6.0.2.
Please refer to the official release notes for a full breakdown and changes, updates and credits associated with this release.
Notable Firestorm 6.0.1 Updates
The following is a short update of some of the more user-visible updates present in the Firestorm 6.0.1 Early Access release, presented for the benefit of users who may not have downloaded that version.It includes both Lab-drived and Firestorm-specific updates. For a more detailed overview on that release, please refer to Firestorm 6.0.1: Animesh Early Access.
Animesh allows the avatar skeleton to be applied to any suitable rigged mesh object, which can then in turn be animated using suitable scripts and animations contained within the object’s Contents. This opens up a whole range of opportunities for content creators and animators to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features.
While Animesh is likely to primarily be used by content creators, it has been designed so that any suitable rigged mesh can be converted to Animesh directly from the Build / Edit floater . Do be aware, however that simply converting an object will not cause it to start animating – you’ll need suitable animations and a script to run them. Like any other object utilising animation, this is done by adding the animations and scripts via the Edit > Contents tab for your converted object.
The best way to get started with Animesh is to use the available resources. These include:
Derender Animesh: depending on your system, Animesh may impose some performance impacts, particularly where a lot of Animesh is active within a scene. To help mitigate this, Firestorm 6.0.2 includes an option to derender all Animesh in a scene (Developer menu > Rendering > Derender All Animesh). Note that this is only temporary, and derendered Animesh will reappear after a teleport or re-logging.
Auto-scaling amortisation of the new Animesh dynamic bounding box calculations. This fix limits the overhead of the new dynamic bounding box calculations to AvatarExtentRefreshMaxPerBatch per AvatarExtentRefreshPeriodBatch frames. The default is 5 avatars per 4 frames, so in a busy region, 25 avatars would take 20 frames to refresh the bounding boxes.
Performance tweaks by reducing Matrix operations per render pass.
More JointMatrix Palette caching tweaks:
The cache has been moved to drawable for more benefit (reduces CPU overhead when rendering shadows and materials by caching the jointmatrixpallette).
Sacrifices some potential cache locality but savings seem to outweigh this.
Other Notable 6.0.1 Updates
Additional updates in the Firestorm 6.0.1 pre-release worth noting are:
Mesh Uploader (for full details on the mesh uploader changes, please refer my Firestorm Mesh Uploader notes): Beq Janus has overhauled the mesh uploader to improve its use and the information it provides. She has also provided comprehensive documentation on these updates, which are summarised below:
Upload cost and physics cost calculation breakdowns – see image below for more.
Physics details, the costs of the different types of physics (convex hull, prim).
Resizable preview window with higher resolution image and improved shading/lighting.
Correct highlighting of degenerate mesh.
Improved error handling for physics models (avoid some MAV errors).
UV Guide overlay.
Note Firestorm 6.0.2 includes further updates to the uploader
Experimental Teleport Attachments Fix (Debug Settings > FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixKillDelay): a timer delay designed to prevent attachments from being detached temporarily after a teleport has completed. Works with FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFix when set to TRUE; set to 3 seconds by default.
Left-click None option (Build Menu): allows transparent prims / mesh to be clicked-through that might otherwise be in the way when trying to touch other objects (via LL).
Auto Replace for Note Cards: dynamic replacement of text within note cards when the Auto Replace function for spelling is enabled via Preferences > Chat > Typing > Auto Replace (see the Firestorm wiki on Auto Replace).
Linden Lab Derived Updates in Firestorm 6.0.2
This version brings Firestorm up to parity with Linden Lab release viewers through to release version 6.0.1.522263 (formerly the Spotykach RC viewer, promoted on December 13th, 2019. Major updates in that release include:
Voice Server:
Second Life: Vivox version 4.9.0002.30313 (Mac and Windows) (Opensim: Vivox version 4.6.0017.22050 (Mac and Windows); Linux: Vivox native voice version 3.2.0002.10426, Firestorm only).
Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) Dullahan:
Dullahan: 1.1.1080
CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4.513446
Chrome: 65.0.3325.146
Page of test URLs for Dullahan. With the Developer Menu enabled (Ctrl Alt Q) press Ctrl-Shift-Z then the Home page button.
Firestorm 6.0.2 Updates
Appearance and Inventory
The Avatar menu includes new short cut for the Avatar > Avatar Health > Refresh Attachments option (Alt-Shift-R).
Replace Links – Delete links check box
Inventory: Delete Links: the Replace Links inventory option now includes the ability to delete all links to an object:
Open your inventory.
Locate the object which has links you wish to delete (or one of the links themselves). Right click on the item / link and select Replace Links.
The Replace Links dialogue box opens, recording the object link name, the option to replace it with a new name and a new Delete Links Only check box.
Click the Delete Links check box to activate it. The Replace field in the dialogue box is replaced by the warning Links To This Item Will Be Removed.
Click Start to delete all links.
Experimental Lost Attachments Report (Debug Settings > FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixReport): when enabled, this reports attachments that were attempted to get detached during a teleport or region crossing to nearby chat.
Inventory should no longer automatically opening to show new items regardless of settings (FIRE-23476).
Enabling Disable Random Eye Movements (Preferences > Firestorm > Avatar > Disable Random Eye Movements) will no longer cause the avatar’s hands to splay (FIRE-23457).
Build Updates
Revisions and updates to the mesh uploader introduced in Firestorm 6.0.1
Allow intentional degenerate placeholders – this fixes the problem of “Physics mesh too dense” false positives (FIRE-23367 and FIRE-23387).
Allow override of client side mesh validation as a workaround for edge cases and different grid validation.
This effectively restores previous server-side MAV error dialogues alongside client-side warnings.
Fixed up 3-point lighting (so it has 3 points) that was messed up in a rogue merge.
Fixed up black bar in mesh preview when the mesh uploader is used with low resolution screen (FIRE-23340).
Increased panel height to avoid warning message overlapping.
Angle Cone particles should no longer be rotated by pi/2 when previewed in the particle editor (FIRE-23315).
UI Updates
Texture picker should no longer open the wrong floater when pressing space in preview mode (FIRE-23582).
RLVa Updates
Firestorm is still using RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.2.1 / RLVa v2.2.0.56680.
@setgroup Throttle
With Firestorm 6.0.2 @setgroup is throttled to one (unowned) call every 60 seconds across all objects. An object a @setgroup lock may bypass this throttle once, to allow @setgroup=n,setgroup:[;]=force to succeed regardless of any/other objects’ command history.
This will break all animated group tag cyclers introduced after the @setgtoup feature was added to Firestorm 5.1.7. However, it has been introduced at Linden Lab’s request due to the performance issues multiple frequent @setgroup calls were causing (each call generates a database write). Further, Linden Lab will shortly be introducing a server-side throttle to active group changes and group role changes, and so @setgroup will be broken in any viewer using it.
Please do not blame Firestorm or any other TPV using @setgroup for this change. There is nothing that can be done about it, given the forthcoming server-side throttle. We did attempt to contact all the sellers of these group title animators on the Marketplace many weeks ago to warn them that the feature had to be removed & sadly only one creator removed their listing.
Other RLVa Changes
New ‘RLVaSplitRedirectChat’ setting: splits long chat lines when @redirchat restricted.
Debug: RLVaSplitRedirectChat) – set to TRUE.
Menu bar > RLVa > Split Londe Redirected Chat
Fixes for:
@setoverlay_alpha causing a diagonal line to appear on the rendered texture.
@shownames exceptions should not have their name anonymised in nearby chat.
@shownames exceptions not having the correct colour on the minimap (FIRE-23473).
Firestorm application icon should no longer randomly flash on the Windows 10 taskbar (FIRE-23498)
Fix for the camera floater zoom glitch (FIRE-23470).
Firestorm should no longer crash when adding a large number of users to a contact set.
Firestorm should correctly request microphone permissions on OS X Mojave (FIRE-23405).
The context menu in scroll lists (LLScrollListCtrls) can now be opened with the Windows keyboard (FIRE-19933).
Skinning and translation updates – see the release notes.
Feedback
Not a major update, unless you skipped the 6.0.1 early access. As with that release, the core element for 6.0.2 is Animesh, together with the revised mesh uploader for content creators.
Performance-wise, I’ve found Firestorm 6.0.2 to be equitable to Firestorm 6.0.1. Other than this, not a lot to report.
On Sunday December 16th, 2018, the Firestorm team issued Firestorm 6.0.1, which includes Animesh support.
Note that this update is being classified as a “public beta”, because further Firestorm-specific Animesh optimisations are being planned. This means there will be a further “full release” is being planned for January 2019.
However, while Firestorm 6.0.1.56538 may be classed as a”beta”, it should be considered as stable and as bug-free as any previous release.
In keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is an overview of the release, highlighting some of the more significant changes I feel will be of most interest to users.
Please use the table of contents on the right to jump to any specific topic of interest. Full details of all changes, and contributor credits can be found in the official release notes.
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 6.0.1.
Note that as a beta release, Firestorm 6.0.1.56538 will not overwrite any existing release version of Firestorm you may have installed, but will be installed into a separate folder / location. However, note that swapping back and forth between this beta and another version of Firestorm will wipe your cache each time.
Lab Derived Updates
Core Updates
This version brings Firestorm up to parity with Linden Lab release viewers through to version 6.0.0.520636 (Animesh), including the recent Rakomelo, Quinquina and Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil Maintenance viewers, and incorporates Vivox Version 4.9.0002.30313 (Mac and Windows).
Animesh
For those who may be unaware of it (!), Animesh allows the avatar skeleton to be applied to any suitable rigged mesh object. This, together with suitable animations and scripts placed within the contents of the object, allow it to be animated in much the same way as the Second Life avatar. This opens up a whole range of opportunities for content creators and animators to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features.
While Animesh is likely to primarily be used by content creators, it has been designed so that any suitable rigged mesh can be converted to Animesh directly from the Build / Edit floater (see below, left). Do be aware, however that simply converting an object will not cause it to start animating – you’ll need suitable animations and a script to run them.
Like any other object utilising animation, this is done by adding the animations and scripts via the Edit > Contents tab for your converted object.
Left: any suitable rigged mesh object can be converted into Animesh by adding animation scripts and toggling the Animesh check-box in the viewer. Right: one possible outcome of Animesh is that over time, it might discourage the use of alpha-flipping to simulate animation. This involves creating multiple versions of something like an animal (or parts of an animal) and then using a script to reveal them in turn, while keeping the other hidden with alpha masks. While it results in simulated animation (such as a squirrel climbing a bird feeder), alpha flipping is very performance / rendering intensive (r)
How To Get Started With Animesh
The best way to get started with Animesh is to use the available resources. These include:
Derender Animesh: Despite the hoped-for performance improvements Animesh might allow when compared to alpha flipping, these will be the potential for performance impacts in regions / parcels with a large number of Animesh objects moving around.
To help mitigate this, Firestorm 6.0.1 includes an option to derender all Animesh in a scene (Developer menu > Rendering > Derender All Animesh).
Note: Derendered Animesh will reappear after a teleport or re-logging.
Also, Firestorm includes a number of other Animesh tweaks:
Auto-scaling amortisation of the new Animesh dynamic bounding box calculations. This fix limits the overhead of the new dynamic bounding box calculations to AvatarExtentRefreshMaxPerBatch per AvatarExtentRefreshPeriodBatch frames. The default is 5 avatars per 4 frames, so in a busy region, 25 avatars would take 20 frames to refresh the bounding boxes.
Performance tweaks by reducing Matrix operations per render pass.
More JointMatrix Palette caching tweaks:
The cache has been moved to drawable for more benefit (reduces CPU overhead when rendering shadows and materials by caching the jointmatrixpallette).
Sacrifices some potential cache locality but savings seem to outweigh this.
Other Lab-Derived Updates
Additional Lab updates worth noting are:
BUG-216339 – Add a Click to: action to the Build / Edit floater to disable clicking objects that can be set per-object in a linkset – see Left-Click None Option, below, for more.
BUG-216416 – Add a transparency indicator for invisiprims. When “Highlight Transparent” (CTRL+ALT+T) is used, invisiprims will now be highlighted in green.
BUG-225670 – Include the full Windows 10 build number in Help > About Second Life and logs
TextureLoadFullRes setting no longer persistent, to avoid issues with accidentally setting it on systems which cannot handle the memory load.
The CTRL key must be held when dragging inventory folders into in-world objects. This change was primarily made to address accidental inventory “loss” by dragging a folder of no copy items into an in-world object.
Fix for your avatar not standing up after pressing Shift+Alt+S keyboard short-cut.
