Tag: Firestorm Reviews

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.

Table of Contents The Usual Before We Begin Notable Firestorm 6.0.1 Updates Animesh Firestorm Animesh Additions Other 6.0.1 Notable Updates Linden Lab Derived Updates in Firestorm 6.0.2 Firestorm 6.0.2 Updates Appearance and Inventory Build Updates UI Updates RLVa Updates Other Updates of Note Feedback

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

For a detailed overview, see my Firestorm Animesh notes.

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:

• Official Linden Lab resources:
  • Animesh User Guide
  • Animesh test content ( Raptor and Aditya – rez and wander; Teddy – attachment)
  • Animesh test regions: Animesh 1 ; Animesh 2 ; Animesh 3 ; Animesh 4 ; Animesh 5 ; Animesh Adult.
  • Animesh LSL methods:
    • llStartObjectAnimation
    • llStopObjectAnimation
    • llGetObjectAnimationNames
  • Animesh feedback thread
• Additional resources:
  • My Animesh overview
  • Animesh example content by Silas Merlin (free and full permissions)
  • Animesh on the Marketplace.

Firestorm Animesh Additions

• 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).

• 

  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).

Other Updates of Note

• FMOD Studio updated to version 1.10.10.
• KDU updated to version 7.A.6.
• 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.

Links

• Firestorm 6.0.2 release announcement
• Firestorm 6.0.2 release notes
• Firestorm downloads

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 6.0.1.

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.

How To Get Started With Animesh

The best way to get started with Animesh is to use the available resources. These include:

• Official Linden Lab resources:
  • Animesh User Guide
  • Animesh test content ( Raptor and Aditya – rez and wander; Teddy – attachment)
  • Animesh test regions: Animesh 1 ; Animesh 2 ; Animesh 3 ; Animesh 4 ; Animesh 5 ; Animesh Adult.
  • Animesh LSL methods:
    • llStartObjectAnimation
    • llStopObjectAnimation
    • llGetObjectAnimationNames
  • Animesh feedback thread
• Additional resources:
  • My Animesh overview
  • Animesh example content by Silas Merlin (free and full permissions)

Firestorm Animesh Additions

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.

Continue reading “Firestorm 6.0.1: Animesh Early Access” →

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.

The Usual “Before We Begin” Bit

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 5.1.7.

Core Updates

• Firestorm 5.1.7 has parity with all version of Linden Lab’s viewer, up to version 5.1.6, with additional cherry picked fixes from upstream of that release.
• KDU updated to version 7.10.4 (7.A.4) – Kakadu release notes.
• Firestorm 5.1.7 has been updated to Restrained Love API: RLV v3.2.1 / RLVa v2.2.0.55786 – see the RLVa 2.2 Release Notes for details.

Major Lab Derived Updates

This is a summary of the main updates derived from Linden lab’s core viewer code.

• 64-bit Project Alex Ivy: rebuilds the viewer using 64-bit address space, utilising Linden Lab’s Alex Ivy code base. This should improve viewer stability, particularly for those with more than 4 Gb of memory, and possibly also improve performance.
  • As the 64-bit Alex Ivy code uses Linden Lab’s Havoc sub-libraries that are specific to Second Life, this means that the 64-bit versions of Firestorm for Windows and OSX now have both Second Life and OpenSim flavours, the latter allowing for continued support of OpenSim users.
  • The 64-bit Linux build remains with the Firestorm team’s own 64-bit code.
• Media Updates – Project Dullahan: a series of updates, fixes, improvements and security patches for the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), that is the basis for the viewer’s built-in web browser.
  • The option to not accept cookies has been removed due to complexities of not doing so in the in-viewer browser. For a more controlled cookie experience, an external full-featured browser may be better.
  • Also includes updates to VLC, that provides support for video media playback.
• Rendering Improvements – Project love Me Render: this is a large collection of rendering improvement from LL. See the Love Me Render release notes for details.
• Vivox Update and Voice Fixes: a number of updates / improvements:
  • Adds support for a higher quality voice using SLVoice version 4.9.
  • Fixes the apparent position of the speaker in nearby voice.
  • Improves retry behaviour when there are problems connecting or during temporary connection problems.
  • Logs more detailed information to the Lab for quantifying connection issues.
  • Improves security of the communication between the viewer and SLVoice.
  • Note that with these changes:
    • Local teleports will cause a short (a few seconds) voice interruption because the viewer now detaches from voice a little earlier in the teleport sequence.
    • With some SLVoice changes, the SLVoice executable can be copied into another viewer – that will not work with this update. There are changes to the connection between the viewer and SLVoice that are required. Talking to any viewer version should work.
  • Unrelated to voice, improves the validation of TLS certificates (security improvement).

Additional Lab-Derived Updates

This update also includes:

• Avatar Physics improvements / safety checks: this fixes the problem with boob movement freezing & boobs getting stuck at odd angles (BUG-202903 / FIRE-22135)
• Sculpties no longer rendered until fully loaded (or fail to load): this should remove the blobs and spheres see in-world as sculpties load.
• Viewer frame rate fix (BUG-6943): viewer FPS should no longer drop when facing away from certain objects.
• Inventory directory (BUG-214575 / FIRE-22281): the inventory directory should no longer be deleted while keeping the Delete key.
• Report Abuse (BUG-202904 / FIRE-22152): double-clicking the Report Abuse option will no longer crash the viewer.
• Materials update: normal and specular maps are no longer downloaded if ALM is off.

See the Firestorm Change Log for a full list of Lab and Firestorm fixes.

Firestorm Updates and Additions

User Interface: New Features and Updates

Menu Updates

• Avatar:
  • A new Favorite Wearables option for accessing the Favorite Wearables panel (see below).
  • A new Show / Hide User Interface option (also ALT-Shift-U). Use the keyboard shortcut to show the UI when hidden, and note that chiclets and script dialogues remain visible with the UI hidden. CTRL+ALT+F1 will still hide / show the UI as well.
• World:
  • Set Home To Here relocated to be with the other place-related options.
  • Teleport Here has an added separator between it and the menu options below it.

• Help: new item: Firestorm Events Calendar – opens the Firestorm Google Calendar of event, including all Firestorm classes.

Preferences Updates

• Firestorm:
  • Uploads: new button to reset custom uploads folders to their viewer defaults.
  • Build 1: it is now possible to switch the Script Editor font type and adjust the font size. All pre-processed output also obeys the chosen font.

• Move & View: new options to manage viewer-side region crossings add to the Movement sub-tab. See Experimental Region Crossing Code, below.
• User Interface:
  • 2D Overlay: new option to make the statistics bar ignore focus requests when closing other floaters with CTRL+W. When enabled, the statistics bar will never receive focus when another window is closed. Actions such as changing graph layout for items are still possible when enabled.

New Toolbar Buttons

• Beacons: opening the Beacons floater panel.
• Wearable Favorites: see Favorite Wearables Panel, below.

Panels and Floaters

• Appearance Panel:
  • Wearing Tab: the Wearing tab now lists the rendering complexity of each worn in-world object. This can be accessed via the Avatar menu > Appearance (or CTRL-O) and then open the Wearing tab.
  • Outfits Tab:
    • Double-click will add/remove.
    • Wearing tab – double-click will remove for “Wearables” and “Temporary attachments”.
• Inspect Panel:
  • A new “Options” button has been added to the Inspect panel allowing you to select which columns are displayed.
  • New object complexity count added to the information display on the left of the panel.

Favorite Wearables

The Favorite Wearables panel can be used to list frequently used items (e.g. HUDs, attachments) in a floater so they can be quickly attached or removed as needed. This can help with performance, as you can conveniently detach attachments you’re not using and remove their simulator script overhead, or take off HUDs you’re not using, to remove their texture memory use, then quickly re-attach them when needed without having to locate them in Inventory.

The panel has its own toolbar button for quick access., or can be opened via the Avatar menu > Favorite Wearables.

To add items to the panel:

• Open the panel and your inventory.
• Drag the items you want to display in the panel from inventory into the panel window. Note this will create a link to the original item in the #Wearable Favorites folder in inventory.
• To remove an item from the panel, right-click on the item to highlight it and then click the Trash icon at the top of the panel. This will remove the item from the panel’s list, delete the link in the #Wearable Favorites, but will not delete the item from your inventory.

To attach an item listed in the panel, simply right-click on it to display a menu comprising the familiar Add, Wear, Attach to and Attach to HUD (for HUDs) options. This menu also allows you to view the object’s profile, or use Show Original to open your Inventory and highlight the original version.

Right-clicking on an attached item (shown in a different colour in the panel) will display a menu with options to edit the attachment (opens the Build panel), detach it, open its profile or locate the original in inventory.

In addition, the panel includes a search bar that will cause the panel to only display items which fully or partially match the text typed into it, and a drop-down list of sort options.

Continue reading “Firestorm 5.1.7: back up to speed” →

On Wednesday, January 24th, 2018, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 5.0.11.53634. This is a significant update to the viewer, incorporating code updates from a number of recent viewer releases from Linden Lab, as well as some major updates from the Firestorm team and a number of important new features and updates, as well as a range of bugs fixes and improvements.

Given the extent of the updates in this release, and in keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is  not an in-depth review of everything new  / updated in version 5.0.11.53579, but rather an overview, highlighting some of the more significant changes and updates I feel will be of most interest to users.

For full details of all changes, and all due credits to contributors, etc., please refer to the official release notes.

The Before We Begin

• 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 5.0.11.

Major Lab Derived Updates

Firestorm 5.0.11 brings the viewer up to parity with the Lab’s 5.0.9 code base. It includes the following major updates from the Lab.

• Asset-HTTP Project: Firestorm now fetches the majority of inventory assets (landmarks, wearables – system layer clothing and body parts), sounds, gestures and animations) the same way as textures, mesh and avatar baking information: via the Content Delivery Network (CDN), rather than through the simulator. This should make loading of such content both faster and more reliable.
• 64-bit Havok sub-libraries: the 64-bit version of Firestorm now uses Havok physics with the mesh uploader , and can now visualise the pathfinding navmesh.
• Group ability Always Allow ‘Create Landmark’:  this was accidentally removed from the viewer, and has now been returned. When enabled on a group role, it allows members of that role to override the teleport routing (e.g. right-click >teleport to) on the parcel if a landing point is set, as long as Direct Teleport is enabled on the region (BUG-100719).
• Incorporation of the Martini (November 2017),  Moonshine (September 2017) and Margarita (August 2017) viewer updates.

Note: while Firestorm 5.0.11.53634 includes the 64-bit Havok sub-libraries for Second Life, it is not using Linden Lab’s Alex Ivy 64-bit code base. That will be for the next FS release.

Firestorm Updates and Additions

Viewer Performance: Mesh Rendering Information Features and Updates

Key among the updates to this release of Firestorm are new features and updates to a number of floaters intended to help users make better judgement calls on how content in Second Life might be affecting their viewer performance, and potentially make more informed choices about the goods they purchase in-world.

Build Floater – Physics View

Firestorm now includes an option to viewing the physics shape of objects you can edit. Among other things, this can help avoid having items you drag from inventory fail to appear in-world, with the message “Failed to place object at specified location. Please try again.” appearing in the top right corner of the viewer window.

The option is on the Features tab of the Build floater, and takes the form of an eye icon to the right of the Physics Shape drop-down.

• If displayed with a red line through it (default): show physics shape is disabled
• If shown without a red line through it: show physics shape is enabled.

When enabled, the selected object’s physical shape is shown in blue. Sometimes this will match the shape of the object itself (below left); other times, it may not (below right). Any attempt to rez another item on the part of the object covered by the blue will succeed; any attempt to rez on the part of an object not covered by the blue will likely result in the “Failure to place object” message.

Showing the physics shape of surfaces reveals why some may be walkable and why avatars may have problems with others – such as colliding with “something” while apparently not standing close to an object, or being unable to pass through a gap or open doorway.

Notes:

• Show Physics Shape can also be accessed via the Build Menu > Options > Show Physics Shape When Editing.
• Once enabled, Show Physics Shape remains active until manually disabled, or until you log-out of Second Life (it will be automatically disabled on your next log-in).
• For more information on physics shapes, see:
  • Coming to Firestorm soon… A couple of new features for builders and non-builders alike – Beq Janus.
  • Blue sky thinking – Physics view explained – Beq Janus.

Build Floater: Mesh Information

The Build floater also provides a range of new information specific to mesh objects and their level of detail (LOD). This can be seen on the Object tab of the floater when a mesh object is selected. For prim objects, the tab is unchanged and will display the “old” information (Path Cut, Hollow, Twist, Taper, etc.).

For a detailed examination of LOD please refer to For LOD’s sake stop! by Beq Janus. The following is intended to provide a brief overview of the mesh object information.

Mesh objects can comprise up to four different versions, as defined by the creator a very High detailed model, with a high count of triangles, displayed with the object is being viewed up close, and then up to three models with progressively less detail (fewer triangles), designed to be used the further away the camera is from the object (Medium, Low and Lowest). These are collectively referred to as level of detail models, and are designed to improve the rendering of scenes. In essence, the further away (or smaller) and object is, the less detail can be seen and so the less detailed versions can be under when rendering it, easing the overall rendering load.

The first two parts of the mesh information related to these models when a mesh object is selected:

• Mesh Information: lists the number of triangles used in each of the LOD models the creator has provided (note that if two ore more of the model types has the same triangle count, it indicates the same model is being used (so if Low and Lowest both show 3, or example, the same 3-triangle model is being used for both)
• Default Drop-down: allows you to preview each of the different LOD models for the object (make sure Default is selected after use).

The Object LOD behaviour section defines the distances from your camera at which the different LOD model will be swapped one for the next, as defined by the Linden Lab (LL) default LOD Factor (1.250), the Firestorm (FS) default LOD Factor (2.000) and your current LOD factor setting.

Continue reading “Firestorm 5.0.11.53634: rendering, LOD and physics” →

On Tuesday, June 20th, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 5.0.7.52912.

This is something of a maintenance update than a major feature release, covering as it does the more recent updates from Linden Lab – the improved region and parcel access controls, updated Trash behaviour to try to help control risks of inventory loss, custom folders for uploads, the avatar complexity updates, and a host of smaller fixes and tweaks.

Most of these have been adopted directly from the Lab’s code, others  – such as the avatar complexity updates – have been folded-in to existing capabilities in Firestorm. There are also numerous updates and improvements from the Firestorm team as well.

In keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is  not an in-depth review of everything new  / updated in version 5.0.7.52912, but rather an overview, highlighting some of the more significant / interesting changes, updates and  fixes, which I feel will be of most interest to users.

For details of all changes, and all due credits to contributors, etc., please refer to the official release notes.

The Before We Begin

• 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 5.0.7.

Major Lab Derived Updates

Firestorm 5.0.7 brings the viewer up to parity with the Lab’s 5.0.5 code base. So, as noted, this release supports the updated region and parcel access controls, the latest avatar rendering updates, custom upload folders, etc..

Updated Region / Parcel Access Controls

The updated region / parcel access controls, introduced by Linden Lab in May 2017  mean that when a region holder / manager explicitly sets a region for open access to visitors (via the Region / Estate floater), parcel holders on the region can no longer override the setting at the parcel level and create ban lines around their parcel (although they can still use the parcel ban list and scripted security systems if they wish and subject to any covenant).

These updates mean that both the Estate tab in the Region / Estate floater has been updated, and the behaviour of the Access tab in the About Land floater has changed.

In the case of the Estate tab in the Region / Estate floater, the check box Allow Public Access has been removed, and a new option, Parcel Owners Can Be More Restrictive, has been added (see below).

By default, Parcel Owners Can Be More Restrictive is checked, which means that parcel owners should see no difference in behaviour for their parcels unless an estate holder / manager opts to make changes at the estate level.

Should the option be unchecked, the estate holder / manager making the change will receive a warning that they are about to make a change that could affect parcel settings in the estate:

To set the change, the region holder / manager must then clear the warning (OK) and click the Apply button on the Region / Estate floater – failure to do so will leave the option unchanged.

UNCHECKING the option will result in two things happening at the parcel level:

• Parcel owners will receive a new system notification for every parcel in the region they hold which has been affected by the change:

• Any previously active banlines around affected parcel will be removed, and parcel owners will no longer be able to set parcel access restrictions via About Land > Access, as the options to do so will be greyed out:

If a region which previously allowed parcel holders to set their own access restrictions is set to public access (by unchecking Parcel Owners Can Be More Restrictive and clicking APPLY), and then is reverted again (by checking Parcel Owners Can Be More Restrictive and clicking APPLY), all parcels on the region will revert to the access settings applied to them before any changes to region access were made at the estate level.

Trash Behaviour Changes

To try to help with inventory losses through accidental deletion of objects which have mistakenly been moved to Trash, the Maintenance RC viewer has the following Trash related behaviour changes:

• The prompt displayed when you have over 5K items in Trash is amended to show the trash folder when you’re ready to purge it, and before you can purge it.
• Backspace will now only delete on Mac systems (as it’s the only option available), it will no longer delete on windows.
• The purging Trash notification now gives a count of items in Trash.

• The “Are you sure you want to delete this thing” warning will be seen at least once per session.

Note: Firestorm have included a debug setting to disable the trash purging warning – FSDontNagWhenPurging. This is set to FALSE by default (the warning will be displayed). It is recommended you do not change this setting unless you have complete confidence that you are unlikely to accidentally purge wanted items from trash / you viewer is unlikely to incorrectly move folders to your Trash.

Continue reading “Firestorm 5.0.7: tight and tidy” →

On Tuesday, December 13th, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 5.0.1.52150 – the new version number both reflecting the inclusion of the Lab’s Project Bento code and also bringing Firestorm more into line with the Lab’s own viewer version numbering, which the latter has been gently requesting for some time now.

As well as Bento, the release includes almost all the latest code updates and improvements from Linden Lab, and a lot of new nips and tucks from the Firestorm team and via contributions from other parties.

In keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is  not an in-depth review of version 5.0.1.52150, but rather an overview, highlighting some of the more significant / interesting changes, updates and  fixes, which I feel will be of most interest to users.

For full details of all changes, and all due credits to contributors, etc., please refer to the official release notes. Note that this release means that Firestorm version 4.7.5 will be blocked in around three weeks time.

The Before We Begin

• There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
• You should, however, remove your existing version of Firestorm before installing 5.0.1.
• Before removing your current version, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 5.0.1.

Lab Derived Updates

Firestorm 5.0.1 brings the viewer up to parity with the Lab’s 5.0 code base, which means this release supports the new Bento skeleton enhancements plus VLC media capabilities, the Visual Outfits Browser (VOB), a range of fixes and improvements and some upstream additions from the most recent Maintenance RC.

Bento Avatar Skeleton Enhancements

As most people are aware, Project Bento is a collaborative project between the Lab and content creators to improve and enhance the Second Life avatar skeleton in order to better support mesh avatars (Bento does not work with the Second Life system avatar). It adds numerous new bones to the avatar skeleton, allowing easier creation and animation of things like additional wings and limbs, and offers the opportunity for greater facial animations with mesh heads and faces, and even finger manipulation on mesh hands.

In addition, Bento provides a set of new attachment points to work with the new joints – however, the overall limit of the number of attachments you can wear at any one time remains 38 (including HUDs).

Most of all of this work is entirely under-the-hood. However, there are two additions to the avatar right-click context menu for both your own and other avatars: Reset Skeleton and Reset Skeleton And Animations, which should be noted.

These options have been added because sometimes, when changing between one mesh avatar and another, the basic SL avatar can become deformed, resulting in it looking squished, stretched, caught between two looks, or something else. This problem is generally the result of race conditions when the avatar’s appearance is being updated, and both of these buttons are intended to correct the problem  – the option to reset animations being intended to fix deformations which may be due to animations also kicking-in incorrectly / at the wrong time as well, which may cause an avatar to deform.

Note than anyone not using a Bento-capable viewer will see Bento avatars “deformed” or “melted” and will also see any attachments using the new Bento attach points rendered in the avatar’s chest.

Further information on Bento can be found via the following links:

• Lab post introducing Bento
• Second Life Knowledge Base on the Enhanced Skeleton
• Avatar body size wiki page
• Bento updates in this blog

HUD Complexity Warning

If you attach a HUD which makes heavy / excessive use of large textures and which, as a result, can impact your system’s performance, the viewer will display a warning to indicate the problem and which names the HUD. It will naturally fade after a set time has passed.

Visual Outfits Browser

The Visual Outfits Browser (VOB) allows you to use the Appearance floater to capture / upload / select images of your outfits and save them against the outfits in a new Outfit Gallery tab within the floater. It can be accessed by either right-clicking your avatar and selecting Change Outfit or Edit Outfit > Click the left arrow at the top of the floater or via Avatar > Appearance / CTRL-O, then

The tab displays all of your created outfits as a series of folder icons, each one with the name of the outfit beneath it. You can replace these icons with an image of the outfit quickly and easily in one of three ways:

• You can wear the outfit, then right-click on its associated folder icon and select Take a Snapshot. This will open the snapshot floater with save to inventory selected by default, allowing you to photograph yourself wearing the outfit and upload the image to SL, where it automatically replaces the folder icon for the outfit
• You can use Upload Photo to upload an image of the outfit your previously saved to your hard drive, and have it replace the folder icon
• You can use Select Photo to select any image previously saved to your inventory (including any image supplied with the outfit in question, if appropriate), and use that to replace the folder icon for the outfit.

Any outfit within the gallery can be worn (Add to or Replace current outfit) and removed via the right-click context menu, which also includes options to create / delete new outfits, and to create new system clothing items / body parts.

When using the capability there are a number of points to keep in mind:

• Both the Take a Snapshot and the Upload Photo options will incur the L$10 upload fee, with the images themselves saved in your Textures folder
• In all three cases, link to the original images are placed in the outfit folder
• VOB only works for outfits you’ve created using the Appearance floater / the Outfits tab. It doesn’t work for any other folders where you might have outfits – such is the Clothing folder.

You can find out more on the VOB via the Visual Outfits Browser Knowledge Base article.

VLC Media Support

QuickTime has been replaced with LibVLC support for the Windows and Linux versions of the viewer. This is due to Apple discontinuing QuickTime for Windows while leaving vulnerabilities unpatched. see QuickTime for Windows: “uninstall today”.

Other Lab Updates of Note

• The viewer is now DPI aware on Windows 8.1+. This fixes the problems with tiny font size & user interface size on high-resolution monitors on Windows 8.1 and above. The UI Scaling is now be automatically set to the correct value for the system at viewer launch. The maximum UI scaling setting has also been raised as follows:
  • Windows 7: 2.0.
  • Windows 8.1: 2.5.
  • Windows 10: 4.5.
• Improvements to the region “Object Bonus” setting – see BUG-11913.
• A time stamp has been added to Help > About floater.
• A fix to prevent editing marketplace listings before inventory has fully fetched causing listings to be unlisted – see BUG-11804.
  
• A fix for resetting scripts via the build menu no longer works on many scripted objects – see BUG-20086.
• A new alert has been added, warning if too much inventory is in coalesced objects.
• A fix for incorrect radius calculation in the viewer – see Beq Janus’ blog post – Bug hunting – Fixing an ancient LOD issue and also FIRE-20192 / STORM-2138
• PERMISSION_DEBIT notification now defaults to Deny, to to help prevent accidental granting of debit permissions (see below).

Firestorm Updates

Preferences

Notable Preferences updates are:

• Move and View: new option to re-render temporary derendered objects after teleport or after end of session/manual re-rendering via the asset blacklist floater: Re-Render Temporary Derendered Objects After Teleport (see also Asset Blacklist Updates, below).
• Privacy > General: New option to log auto-accepted inventory to nearby chat (requires Automatically Accept New Inventory Items to be enabled).

• User Interface > Font: new font option: Noto.

Avatar Render Settings

Unlike the official viewer, the avatar render settings you apply to individual avatars will persist across log-ins, so if you set an avatar to Do Not Render, that avatar will only render as a grey imposter until such time as you right-click on them again and select either Render Normally (e.g. fully or as a Jelly Doll, depending on your Complexity Setting), or Render Fully, so they will always render in your view, no matter what your Maximum Complexity setting.

With Firestorm 5.0.1 you can track those avatars you’ve set to either always render fully or to never render (other than as a grey imposter) using World > Avatar Render Settings. This displays a floater listing all the avatars you’ve applied a render setting to as either Fully or Never. Right-clicking on an avatar’s name (or using SHIFT-click / CTRL-click for multiple selections) will display a pop-up menu, allowing you to change the current setting for the selected avatar(s). You can also right-click on an avatar’s name and then click the information icon just to the left of their render setting to display their profile.

Asset Blacklist Updates

The Asset Blacklist (World > Asset Blacklist) has a number of improvements:

• Temporarily blocked objects are now shown in the blacklist floater so they can be removed.
• A fix has been added to prevent crashing when leaving an area where many objects were blacklisted.
• A Preferences option has been added to re-render temporary derendered objects after teleport or after end of session/manual re-rendering via the asset blacklist floater: Preferences > Move & View > View > Re-Render Temporary Derendered Objects after Teleport.
• A Clear Temporary button has been added to the blacklist floater to clear all temporary derendered objects.

Graphics Presets Now Global

Graphics presets (a Linden Lab capability introduced into Firestorm with the 4.7.9 release) are now treated as a Global setting, rather than a Per-Account setting. This means that presets can be set from the log-in  splash screen without actually logging-in to the viewer, and helps ensures consistent presentation of the current preset setting. However, it also means that any existing presets either have to be re-created, or need to be manually copied from the per-account settings folder to the global user_settings folder. See FIRE-19810.

 FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFix

There is currently (at the time of writing) an issue in messaging between the simulator and the viewer during region crossings (physical or teleports), which can result in attachments being detached or, harder to detect, attachments being removed server-side, but remaining visible (but effectively ghosted) in your view, and which cannot be individually removed, as the simulator doesn’t recognise them as being there.

A common cause for this problem is multiple items using the same attachment point – which can be a major issue with things like rigged meshes, which then to be set to attach to something like the right hand. Thus, a way to solve this is to move multiple attachments using the same point elsewhere – in the case of rigged mesh, this should be relatively simple, as it will retain its orientation and position relative to your body no matter where it is attached.

The Lab is still investigating this problem. However, in an attempt to help mitigate it, Firestorm have implemented two new debug settings in Firestorm 5.0.1:

• FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFix: enabled by default, this triggers an attempt by the viewer to correctly resync what it believes to be your attachments with the simulator’s understanding of what you have attached, and either prevent items being unexpected removed, or items being removed, but remaining ghosted in your view, etc.
• FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixReport: this option is disabled be default to prevent message spamming on your screen. When enabled, it reports any attachments which the simulator attempted to incorrectly detach during a teleport or region crossing to nearby chat.

RLVa (Restrained Love) Updates

For the full list of RLVa updates, please refer to the release notes. However, the following are worth highlighting:

• RLVa restrictions can be sorted in ascending / descending order via RLVa > Restrictions and clicking on the Restrictions header
• RLVa can be toggled on / off from the viewer log-in splash screen without the need to re-start the viewer on doing so.

Building and Scripting

Mesh uploads should no longer fail from a folder with Unicode characters in the name (FIRE-19806 and BUG-37632), and clicking on a link in a script dialogue should no longer open it as a SLurl rather than launching a web browser (FIRE-20054).

In addition, the LSL preprocessor has the following improvements:

• The “Preprocessed” text window of the preprocessor is no longer editable.
• Line and column are now shown on the “Preprocessed” tab.
• Context menu items and button which are unavailable are properly disabled.
• Actions for context menu items and for buttons are performed on the active tab (if action is available) instead of always on the possibly hidden editor tab.
• The Search / Replace and Goto Line floaters now work on the active tab instead of always on the possibly hidden editor tab.

Other Updates of Note

• An FPS meter has been added to the viewer status bar, with a seconds count also added to the status bar clock (top right corner of the viewer

• 64-bit CEF for Windows x64 in now built as native 64-bit plug-in; no more QuickTime
• The custom payment message is now also sent in-world with the payment instead of only being visible in transaction history
• Sort order and column widths of the region tracker now persist between sessions (FIRE-20025)
  
• Your own avatar’s attachments should now appear in the correct locations when in Mouselook (FIRE-10574 and BUG-1408)
  
• CTRL-F will now focus the local search editor of a window if available – can be disabled through the Debug setting FSSelectLocalSearchEditorOnShortcut to FALSE
• Comma separators added to the avatar complexity notification (so 1,456,897 appears as such, rather than 1456897)
  
• A refresh button has been added to the texture preview window when viewing people’s profile pictures, group insignia, textures in inventory, etc, to overcome issues of the image failing to render in the preview (FIRE-20150)

• Group updates:
  • A Copy SLurl to Clipboard option has been added to the right-click context menu when clicking on a group name – this copies the group’s URI to the clipboard (FIRE-20146)
  • Clicking a group URI should now put focus on an already open and maximised group profile.
• Flickr upload fixes:
  • Direct snapshot uploads to Flickr should no longer upload multiple copies (FIRE-20026)
  • Flickr upload time-out increased to 5 minutes
  • Uploader now checks std:string.max_size() before appending image data to avoid buffer overrun (FIRE-20094)

OpenSimulator Updates

• Setting Home location should no longer fail on OpenSim grids (FIRE-19894)
  
• Legacy search results list items should now be selectable under all circumstances in Inworldz (FIRE-19912).
  

General Observations

Firestorm 5.0.1.52150 brings Firestorm bang-slap up-to-date with the Lab’s own viewer, something the Firestorm team have been striving to achieve for the past couple of years, so kudos to all concerned.

With the inclusion of Bento, this release now means all those making use of the most recent releases of all currently maintained viewers can now correctly render Bento products – so it will be interesting to see how the Bento market for mesh avatars (human or otherwise) now develops.

A side benefit with Bento is that during testing, a good number of preview and beta testers reported an overall improvement in viewer performance – potentially more than can be put down to a purely placebo effect. I run a reasonably high-end system, but have witnessed a step up in average frame rates on our home island / region when compared to 4.7.9 (which also brought something of an improvement for me), and have found some regions I’ve traditionally had problems with (FPS down in the teens with the bells and whistles on) also behaving better.

5.0.1 has, for me, so far been the most stable of all the recent Firestorm releases – not that I tend to have major issues (just oddball ones!). So, as Christmas presents go, this release certainly fills the stocking nicely!

Related Links

• Firestorm 5.0.1.52150 release announcement – Firestorm
• Firestorm 5.0.1.52150 release notes – Firestorm
• Firestorm download page – Firestorm
• Firestorm reviews in this blog