On Wednesday, December 13th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.17.70368 of their viewer.
It should be noted that this is not a new release of the viewer, but rather a hotfix for issues found with the client-side animation overrider which caused the withdrawal of the Firestorm 6.6.16 release (November 29th) – see here for more. In addition, the release includes a number of additional updates and fixes.
Given this, the following is not a complete review of the 6.6.17 update, but focuses on the changes within it which were not a part of 6.6.16, together with the important lead-in notes – for a complete list of major and minor updates and credits for those responsible, please refer to the Firestorm 6.6.17 release notes.
Therefore, if you did not update to Firestorm 6.6.16, please release to my overview of that release as well as reading the notes below.
General Notes
Installation
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
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 6.6.17.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.6.3 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.17’s release, as will version 6.6.16.
Important Additional Notes
End of 32-Bit Windows Support
Linden Lab has recently moved their automated viewer build process to Github Actions (GHA) – see here for more. This will allow Firestorm to produce more timely updates, more in line with LL’s major updates.
However, as the Lab’s new build process does not include the third-party libraries required to build a 32-bit Windows version of the viewer, and Firestorm is not in a position to continue to directly maintain those libraries, Firestorm 6.6.17 will be the last version of Firestorm to provide a 32-bit Windows version.
However, please note that Firestorm 6.6.17 does not support PBR Materials – this will be in the next Firestorm update.
A Note on Inventory Updates
Both Firestorm 6.6.16 and Firestorm 6.6.17 include numerous Inventory updates. some of these see changes in inventory service communications with the viewer, designed to correct a long-standing bug wherein some deleted items became orphaned from the inventory folders and thus invisible.
However, with the fix these “orphaned” items may now be randomly restored to your Lost and Found folder – which may require checking and clearing as a result.
This issue is waiting a fix from Linden Lab – see BUG-234508.
Core Updates in Firestorm 6.6.17
Animation Overrider
Following the release of Firestorm 6.6.16, it was found that the viewer’s client-side Animation Overrider was suffering issues which were affecting a large numbers of users, prompting that version to be withdrawn. Specific fixes to address these problems in this release are:
FIRE-33414 – “Built-in AO destroyed after installing the Firestorm 6.6.16 (70339) Nov 23 2023 19:40:32 (64bit / SSE2)”.
FIRE-33300 – “FS AO doesn’t load animations on login”.
Inventory
FIRE-33322 – “Inventory window randomly jumps to the top”.
Inventory Thumbnail Images should not be displayed uniformly.
An option has been added to disable inventory thumbnail preview images (see: FIRE-33356).
A further option has been added to control the delay before showing the inventory thumbnail preview images (see: FIRE-33285).
New Preferences option for Inventory Preview Images
The issue of Inventory folder names failing to correct update after a rename should now be fixed (see: FIRE-33337 “[BUG-234770] [SL-20682] Misbehaving Folders – can’t rename”.
The issue of tooltips always showing in inventory even though not needed, has been addressed. They should now only show for inventory items with a thumbnail or if it exceeds the width of the window.
Log-in Hang Fix
Firestorm could hang at log-in. The issue was triggered by having the statistics window open from a previous session, causing a cascade of problems, resulting in the viewer hanging.
It has been confirmed that Firestorm 6.6.16.70339 has a bug within the client Animation Override (AO) which is affecting multiple users. Because of this, version 70339 is being withdrawn from the Firestorm download page, and will be replaced once a version with the necessary fixes is available. In the meantime, those affected by the issue (not all Firestorm users necessarily are) should consider rolling back to release 6.6.14 to escape the problems.
On Monday November 27th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.16.70339 of their viewer. This is another release to bring Firestorm up to parity with the more recent releases from Linden Lab as well as adding some new / improved options from the Firestorm team. It is also important for two additional reasons:
It clears a path for Firestorm to move towards a PBR Materials release in line with the Lab’s move to PBR Materials / reflection probes.
It provides a final 32-bit Windows build of the viewer. Going forward, only the 64-bit Windows version will be built and released. See below for more.
This article is not intended to cover every update / change / improvement within the release. These can be found within the Firestorm 6.6.16. release notes, which also provide full credit details for the changes.
This review focuses primarily on the new features included with Firestorm 6.6.16, together with an overview of its parity with Linden Lab’s official viewer code base and and overviews of various updates, improvements and fixes I believe will be of specific interest to Firestorm users in general.
Finally, I have not had time to personally try this release to any great extent, so am not offering any personal feedback on it.
Please note this release is not a Firestorm PBR release. PBR support will be in the next update.
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
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 6.6.16.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.6.3 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.16’s release.
End of 32-Bit Windows Builds
Linden Lab has recently moved their automated viewer build process to Github Actions (GHA) – see here for more. The positive side of this is that Firestorm is particularly well-placed to leverage this change, reducing their own overhead in maintaining a build process whilst also producing more frequent updates. The negative side, however, is that in making this move, Linden Lab removed all of the code libraries required for building a 32-bit Windows version of the viewer.
This means Firestorm 6.6.16 will be the last Firestorm release to support Windows 32-bit, bringing the windows version into line with the Linux and Mac versions
A Note on Inventory Updates
This viewer includes numerous Inventory updates (see below), some of which see changes to the way in which communications between the inventory service and the viewer re managed. Whilst these changes fix a long-standing bug wherein some deleted items became orphaned from the inventory folders and thus invisible, they also mean that these “orphaned” items will now be restored to your Lost and Found folder. So you might want to check Lost and Found and ensure everything in it is for deletion – or move any returned treasures elsewhere before clearing it.
As this re-creation of old items in Lost and Found can occur randomly, JIRA has been raised with the Lab – see BUG-234508.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.16.70339 is fully merged up to the following recent Linden Lab viewer releases:
Core features – Inventory item preview image; single folder inventory view. See below for a short overview.
Updated Object Profiles: right clicking an inventory item → Properties will display an update profile, which includes the ability to view an associated thumbnail (and create one if there is not one available).
Firestorm users can switch back to the old object profile via Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Use Legacy Object Properties
Notes:
When using the inventory extensions for the first time, the pop-up shown on the right will be displayed.
This version of Firestorm includes and upstream fix from that Lab to suppress false reports of packet loss and log spam noise when visiting GLTF enabled regions on a non-PBR-enabled viewer. See BUG-234550.
Increased limits to the number of Estate Managers and Ban list entries in Estates.
A move to VLC for improved parcel audio playback (streaming audio).
New option: Show Ban Lines On Collision (World → Show) when enabled, will only show ban lines around parcels will only be visible on collision, rather than whenever they are within draw distance.
Inventory Extensions Summary
The Inventory Extension viewer introduced two new features intended to make browsing the contents of your inventory easier. These comprise:
Inventory Item Preview – the ability to include thumbnail images (either your own or supplied by the item’s creator) of items within inventory (clothing, body parts, accessories, attachments). These images are persistently linked to the item / folder (unless intentionally deleted or changed) and displayed whenever the mouse pointer is hovered over the related element.
Single Folder view: the ability to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window.
The Item Preview capability comprises two parts:
The ability to view the included thumbnail images on on mouse-over, as noted above.
A dedicated tool for creating thumbnail images, as shown below, right
Note that thumbnails can also be created via an object’s Properties floater.
Elements from the Inventory Extensions capabilities – view and generating thumbnail images
The Single Folder View allows users to open an Inventory folder within a floater of its own, allowing the contents to be viewed without distraction, with them displayed in in one of three ways:
Gallery view – displaying only the thumbnails of those items in the folder for which thumbnails have been created.
List View – all of the folder’s contents, displayed much as they are seen within the open folder in Inventory.
Combination View – those items with an associated thumbnail will have that thumbnail displayed, those which do not will be listed.
Any folder in Inventory can be opened in this manner by right-clicking on it and selecting Open In New Window from the Inventory Context Menu. Further, the floater displaying the open folder includes:
Search (including filtering options) and navigation controls at the top of the floater.
The same tools for accessing additional Inventory management options at the bottom of the floater as those found in the main Inventory panel, together with and additional trash can icon to which items can be dragged-and-dropped to move them to Trash (or can be clicked on when one or more items are selected to move all of them to Trash).
The Single Folder View (right) as supplied by Linden Lab and incorporated in Firestorm 6.6.16, and the menu option used to access it. Note the floater here is set to display in the combined view, in this case showing the thumbnail image supplied by the item’s creator
Important note: Firestorm has had a “Show in new window” option offering similar (but with lesser functionality). This option remains in the viewer for the present, but may be removed in the future. Unfortunately, the Context Menu option for accessing it is displayed directly above the new Open In New Window option (see image above), and the two should not be confused.
The ability to page back and forth between visited Inventory folders in a manner akin to the page back / forward buttons in a browser, and to move back up the folder tree via a similar button. These can all be found in the top left of Inventory floaters.
Inventory Settings
Firestorm 6.6.16 adds a new option called Inventory Settings to the gear icon in the lower-left corner of all Inventory floaters. When clicked, it will display a floater defining how the Inventory view button (again found at the bottom of Inventory floaters, to the left of the Elements count) and how the Show in Inventory option (right-click on an attachment you are wearing and select from menu) and the Find Original option Inventory option (used with inventory links) all behave.
See the images below for both the menu option and the floater it displays with its options.
The Inventory Settings option and floater. Use the radio buttons to set the options in the latter
Preferences
New option for sorting in “Attach to” menus: Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Sort Attachment Spots in “Attach to” Menus Alphabetically (Requires Restart).
When enabled, attachment spots are sorted alphabetically after a restart.
When disabled, attachment sports are ordered according to the hierarchy for alpha priority.
Menus: the Help → Report Problem now redirects to an informational / instructional page on obtaining help from both the Firestorm team and Linden Lab, as shown below.
The new Firestorm Help informational page
Rendering
The issues with motion blur / ghosting after enabling / disabling Shadows has been fixed. This also fixes the related bug that caused saved snapshots to be too dark when Shadows were disabled if Ambient Occlusion was disabled. See: BUG-234275, BUG-234461 and FIRE-33151.
Other Updates of Note
Firestorm 6.6.16 includes numerous bug fixes and improvements – notably with viewer skinning in light of the new Inventory Extensions UI elements, and numerous small improvements to UI element layouts. Please refer to the release notes for details.
Library Updates
FMOD Studio updated to version 2.02.18 – Release Notes.
KDU updated to version 8.3.
Linux Updates
CURL changes: as the use of CURLINFO_SIZE_DOWNLOAD and CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD has been deprecated since Curl version 7.55 (2017), the respective replacements are CURLINFO_SIZE_DOWNLOAD_T (documentation here) and CURLINFO_SPEED_DOWNLOAD_T (documentation here). This change will correct the deprecation warnings when compiling with newer versions of curl on Linux.
Library Updates:
SDL updated to version 2.28.4.
Curl library updated to version 8.3.0.232750741.
Nghttp2 library updated to version 1.56.0.232750738.
OpenSSL library updated to version 1.1.1w.232750656.
The IME checkbox has been renamed from “Use IME Text Input” to “Enable Full IME Support” per FIRE-32074.
OpenSim Updates
For OpenSim the Estate Ban limit and number of Estate Managers remain at 500 and 15 respectively, and the new Second Life limits of 750 and 20 respectively are ignored. OpenSim developers will need to add server-side support to enable the higher limits on their grids to make use of the increasing in the viewer.
A fix has been implemented for a potential region crossing crash.
General note: OpenSim does not current support the Inventory Extensions features outlined above.
On Monday August 14th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.14.69596 of their viewer.
This is another release which might be described as more a maintenance update rather thana major features release, intended to keep Firestorm in step with the current official viewer code base. However, it does include some new capabilities.
When reading the following, please note:
This article is not intended to over every update / change / improvement within the release. These can be found within the Firestorm 6.6.14. release notes, which also provide full credit details for the changes.
This review focuses primarily on the new features included with Firestorm 6.6.14, together with an overview of its parity with Linden Lab’s official viewer code base and and overviews of various updates, improvements and fixes I believe will be of specific interest to Firestorm users in general.
Finally, I have not had time to personally try this release to any great extent, so am not offering any personal feedback on it.
Update, August 17th: a JIRA has been filed that rigged meshes viewed in this version of Firestorm using the Local Mesh (BETA) capability (i.e. visible only to the person testing the mesh) introduced in Firestorm 6.6.8 may result in issues. If you are a content creator who uses the Firestorm Local Mesh (BETA) for viewing your rigged mesh creations, please see FIRE-33157.
General Notes
Installation
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
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 6.6.14.
Version Blocking
As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.5.6 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.14’s release.
Those who are using the 32-bit version of Windows (estimated as around 2% of the Firestorm user base) are advised to check their systems – and if they are using hardware capable of supporting a 64-bit version, to make any necessary upgrades that may be required (generally in the area of RAM), and switch to Windows 64-bit.
An important point to note with this is that 32-bit versions of Windows will not be blocked from accessing Second Life. Rather, viewer upgrades (including the use of required build libraries) will no longer be checked for compatibility with Windows 32-bit. For Firestorm in particular, current 32-bit builds will remain available for the time being; however, no guarantee is given that this will continue to be the case with future releases.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.14.69596 is fully merged up to the Linden 6.6.14 code-base, per the notes below.
Maintenance T – Maintenance Transparent Translation
Primarily focused on the shift of translation services (accessed via Preferences → Chat → Typing → Translation) from Microsoft Bing to Microsoft Azure and DeepL. Also includes a range of Profile-related updates.
Building: Select (and Replace) All Matching Textures
A new option – Find All – within the Build / Edit floater’s Texture tab, allows all faces in an object or linkset using the same diffuse (texture) or normal or specular map, to be updated at once.
Right-click on the item / linkset to be updated and select Edit from the Context / Pie menu.
In the upper part of the Edit / Build floater click the Select Face radio button – (1) in the mage below.
Click the floater’s Texture tab to open it (shown in the image below), and:
Use the Texture / Bumpiness (Normal) or Glossiness (Specular) radio buttons – (2) in the image below – to select the map type to be updated.
Click on a face of the object / linkset containing the map to be updated. The face will be highlighted, and the selected map will be displayed in the Texture Swatch box on the Edit / Build floater – (3) on the image below.
Click on the Find All button to select ALL of the object faces containing the selected map – (4) in the image below.
When you are satisfied you have selected the correct map / surfaces, click the Texture Swatch in the Edit / Build floater to open the Texture Picker floater and pick the map you wish to use and apply it to all the selected faces in the usual manner.
The Find All button for selecting all instances of texture / normal / specular map used on an object / linkset. See notes above for an explanation of the numbers
Building: Strip Unwanted Alpha Channels During Image Uploads
Images uploaded to Second Life can include an empty / almost empty alpha channel which can lead to rendering issues (such as textures flipping back and forth on one another as the camera moves, impacting rendering performance) when the texture is viewed in-world. While such empty / near-empty alpha channels may be intentional, they are generally an accidental or unwanted artefact, and should be removed from the image to avoid issues such as those mentioned above.
To achieve this, Firestorm 6.6.14 introduces an automatic scan of images being uploaded to Second Life to check for alpha channels which are either empty or almost empty.
If such channels are found in an image, the Upload Preview floater will display an additional warning and checkbox: Empty Alpha Channel Will Be Removed (see the image below, left).
Leaving this warning checked will cause the the unwanted transparency information to be stripped from the image when it is uploaded.
If there is a need to have the transparency information uploaded with the image, the warning should be unchecked. However, note that doing so will display an additional caution and explanation on the impact of including alpha channels in images, together with two buttons, as shown in the image below, right.
Click the required button displayed by the caution to clear it, then click the upload button to proceed with the image upload.
Stripping unwanted alpha channels from images at upload
Additional notes:
The alpha state for the image, once uploaded – “no alpha” or “with alpha” – is displayed at the bottom of the upload floater, alongside the uploaded image size (as arrowed at the button of the image on the left, above).
The Uploaded Size field has been fixed to correctly show the size of the uploaded image in all cases. see: FIRE-32944.
Inventory: Show Only Coalesced Objects
Show only coalesced objects in Inventory
Firestorm 6.6.14 adds a new inventory option to display only coalesced objects (i.e. multiple items returned to inventory as a single group, rather than being returned individually).
The option can be found within the Inventory gear icon menu (the gear icon being located at the bottom left of the Inventory floater), directly under those for showing only Modifiable, Copyable or Transferable items in inventory.
Toggle the option on (check mark visible) and off (no check mark) as required.
Note the option works in cooperation with all other options in the menu.
Open the animation Explorer (World → Animation Explorer).
Select the animation to be blacklisted and click the Blacklist button in the lower right section of the Explorer floater.
Repeat for any other animations, as required and close the floater when done.
Blocked animations can be reviewed / unblocked via the Asset Blacklist floater (World → Asset Blacklist).
Notes:
Blocking only applies to animations played through the simulator. Those played locally (i.e. within your viewer) will still be seen by you as playing, even if blocked.
A Blacklisted animation my still be seen by others for a brief period after blocking, as it will take a second or so for the block information to be propagated through the simulator.
Audio Streaming: Stream Title Floater and Track History
It is now possible to display information on the current song title and artist playing on the parcel audio stream (if active), and a history of the last 10 played music tracks. The information is displayed is its own floaters, accessed via the menu bar → World → Stream Title.
Enabling the music stream information, together with the additional recently played history (ported from Kokua)
Additional Firestorm Improvements of Note
Inventory
Reload Received Items: a button within the Received Items section of the Inventory floater will refresh the list of items in the section.
Received Items reload button
Ungroup folder: A request to confirm has been added when ungrouping a folder in inventory.
Inventory offer sound: the Inventory Offer sound (Preferences → Sound & Media → UI Sounds 3 → Inventory Offer) will now play when Automatically Accept New Inventory Items and the following Log Auto-Accepted Inventory Items to Chat are enabled (both under Preferences → Privacy → General). This is is response to FIRE-32396 .
Floater improvements: the floater can now be resized, lists will now scroll, and clipping of text on the Settings tab has been fixed. All in response to FIRE-32624.
Floater should now recognise and load all forms of “.DAE” (e.g. Dae DAe DAE dAE and daE). See FIRE-32180.
Meshes exported with Autodesk Collada should not longer fail, fixing FIRE-32599.
Scaling and rigged mesh handling corrected in accordance with FIRE-32604 and FIRE-32681.
Script Editor: A fix for the unindent after } when a previous line had a word wrap. See: FIRE-19959.
Animation Playback Floater and Preferences
The additional information displayed in the Animation Playback floater (Priority, Duration, Loop, Ease In, Ease Out and Joints) can now be toggled on/off using a drop-down button (see below).
Firestorm Animation Playback floater: advanced animation information can be shown / hidden via the drop-down button
In addition, the default state of the Playback Floater can be set via Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Always Expand Animation Preview Advanced Information. By default the option is unchecked, meaning the advanced information will not be displayed when the Animation Playback floater is displayed.
General UI / Floater Updates of Note
Profile updates:
The View Profile option has been removed from the Context menu for your own avatar, as its already listed in the Community sub-menu. See: FIRE-32304.
Profile description text should not longer be truncated in some cases. See: FIRE-32901.
Unsaved text in the Notes tab of another avatar’s Profile should no longer be discarded when the Profile owner enters or leaves the region at the same time. See: FIRE-32926.
Area Search: updates have been made to Area Search to prevent some of the aggressive culling which is impacted Area Search results.
However, to get the best results when doing an Area Search, you will still need to turn slowly on the spot once, to fully load all the objects.
In addition, once an item is added to the Area Search it will/should not vanish a few seconds later as had been the observed behaviour with previous releases.
Assorted floater design, typographic corrections, layout corrections and tooltip updates, per the release notes.
Other Updates of Note
Asset Cache Update
Until now, automatic purging of the Asset Cache would only commence when the “max_cache” value was exceeded. This essentially meant that a) the Asset Cache could exceed this value, and b) once started, automatic purging would be pretty much constant, impacting viewer performance.
With Firestorm 6.6.14, this has been changed:
The “max_cache” value means just that: the largest size the Asset Cache will reach.
Two thresholds are set via debug settings:
A” high water” threshold set to 95% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, purging of the oldest caches files will commence.
A “low water” threshold set to 70% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, automatic purging will stop.
These two values will ensure:
The “high water” threshold leaves 5% capacity available within the Asset Cache, allowing incoming data from a simulator to be properly caches during any automatic purging.
The “low water” threshold means that automatic purging, once started, will not be constant, potentially impacting viewer performance.
This also means that users can now set their cache to a ramdisk if they really want and it won’t (normally) overflow.
Library Updates
FMOD Studio updated to version 2.02.15.
Havok TPV library updated to version 1.0.577418, in line with LL.
Linux Updates
Improvement: Firestorm now uses system-wide fontconfig and freetype directly from the user’s system, rather than using 3p libraries packaged with the viewer.
Fixes:
A fix for the “alpha triangles bug”(see FIRE-23370).
WIP to get Linux crash reporting working with Bugsplat.
The ability to toggle between internal/external browsers in preferences on Linux (Preferences → Network & Files → Connection → Web Browser).
Updates:
Apr suite updated to version 1.4.5.230351228.
OpenJpeg Library updated to version 2.5.0.
CEF updated to version 1.12.2.202210012157_92.0.27.
Colladadom updated to version 2.3.230940029.
Libxml2 updated to version 2-2.10.3.230940019.
Xmlrpc updated to version 0.54.2.230940042
OpenSim Updates
Opensim VarRregions with non-power of 2 sizes no longer flood logs.
Avatar Profile fixes including: correct loading; UDP profiles restored; profile picks + notes should load, 1st Life notes should save back to the server.
On Monday January 16th, 2023 (PDT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.8 of their viewer.
This is another release which might be described as more a maintenance update, intended to keep Firestorm in step with the current official viewer code base, together with focus on bug fixes more than new features.
However, that said, there are some significant updates to be found in this release, both from Linden Lab (as with the incorporation of Legacy Profiles) and also from the Firestorm Team (notably the Mesh Preview Upload by Beq Janus).
So, without further ado, lets get into things and see what’s what. And please note that as per all my articles on viewer updates and releases, this is not a full blow-by-blow breakdown of absolutely everything in the release; rather, it is intended to highlight the more significant updates and fixes people are liable to find useful, and offer some general notes .
For a complete breakdown of changes, please see the official release notes for Firestorm 6.6.8.
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 6.6.8.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.8.68380 is fully merged up to the Linden 6.6.7 code-base, plus some cherry-picked items from upstream, per the notes below.
Hotfix Releases
MFA / ToS Hotfix, viewer version 6.6.7.576223, November 2022 – ensures the viewer correctly required a double-entry of MFA tokens on launching the viewer and on accepting a Terms of Service update.
Modal Hot Fix, viewer version 6.6.4.575022, September 2022 – correcting a crasher within the viewer code.
Fix for a transparency “alpha” blending issues in the above viewer release. In cases of many layers of textures that included transparencies, this would cause some of the lower layers to not render at all.
Improved reporting of spam and phishing attempts from the Group Chat and IM window with the addition of Report Abuse right-click option
Improved land sale option: when selling land, Sell land to “specific person” will show your own name in the “Near Me” list in the people picker – BUG-231954.
Ability to restrict media on a prim to this parcel via World → Parcel Details → Sound → Obscure MOAP – BUG-10416.
Media on a Prim fixes: media will no longer loop when it should not; audio for media no longer plays when the object is edited.
Fixed the Search floater opening without appropriate search results after performing a search from the NavBar
Fixed the “360 snapshot” floater not being refreshed after second clicking on the “World” → “360 snapshot” menu item.
Legacy Profiles
In 2022, Linden Lab made the formal transition back to present avatar profiles through an integrated floater within the viewer with the promotion of viewer version 6.6.3.574158 was promoted to de facto release status in August of that year (although the web-based version of profiles can still be accessed – with reduced functionality – via my.secondlife.com).
With Firestorm 6.6.8, Firestorm incorporates the Lab’s Legacy Profiles code into their existing Profiles floater, with some changes to the latter as noted below.
Firestorm Profiles floater: as it was (l) and as it is with Firestorm 6.6.8 (onwards) (r)
These tabs / options / buttons have been renamed, but the functions remain the same, unless noted below. Note that Interests has been removed.
The Web tab is renamed Feed and displays the user’s Second Life Feed (under my.secondlife.com).
2nd Life and 1st Life tab images:
The 2nd Life Profile picture has a revised aspect ratio.
Within your own profile: clicking the image swatch in either will open a texture picker, allowing you to select an image for either.
Within your own 1st Life tab are three buttons:
Upload Photo – allows you to upload an image from your computer to the 1st Life Tab to preview it (image must still be uploaded to inventory and applied, if it is to be saved & used).
Change Photo – opens a texture picker, allowing you to select an image from inventory to add to your 1st Life tab.
Remove Photo – removes any displayed image from the swatch.
Display Name / Multi-option button:
When viewing your own Profile, the tool button to open the Display Name edit fields is opened.
When viewing the Profile of a Friend, displays a pop-up with the following check-box options:
See when I’m online.
Find me on the world map.
Edit, delete or take my objects.
Note that active options will appear in white on the displayed profile, and inactive will appear greyed out, for eas of reference.
When viewing the Profile on a non-Friend, this area is blank.
Unknown: a new status option (alongside Online and Offline), displayed when the person concerned is not someone you have friended, and who has their viewer set to only show their on-line status to friends.
In addition, and to reduce drama, if a Friend is hiding their status, they will show as Offline, rather than the status in their Profile being blank.
Firestorm Updates and Improvements
Github Actions
Firestorm 6.6.8 is the first set of releases built through the GitHub Actions infrastructure rather than depending on individual developers. This is a significant shift in emphasis for viewer development – and one mirroring moves being made in the same direction by Linden Lab. Benefits include removal of single-person for feature development and providing a more reliable, repeatable build mechanism.
Building and Scripting – Local Mesh (Beta)
Firestorm 6.6.8 introduces Local Mesh as a beta implementation. Developed by Beq Janus, Local Mesh is intended to allow users able to upload mesh to preview their objects in-world (using a “surrogate” object, which can be as simple as a cube prim), and also see edits made to the .DAE file in real time.
The primary aim of this capability is to allow creators check their creations without having to go through the unpredictability of access to Aditi (the Beta grid) for such checks / tests, as well as presenting that real-time viewing of edits to the .DAE file.
The capability works for unrigged mesh, worn rigged mesh and Animesh, and once rendered, the object can have textures and materials applied for testing, as required.
Local Mesh follows the same basic principles as Local Textures, notably:
Meshes are only visible to you through the viewer instance used to apply them.
Meshes only remain visible to you during the current log-in session. A relog will both clear the list of Local Mesh Assets and reduce the “surrogate” object for any local mesh you have “rezzed” in-world to a basic shape.
Local Mesh is accessed via the Build menu: Build → Local Mesh, which in turn opens a new floater, comprising 3 tabs.
The Local Mesh floater. Credit: Beq Janus
Local Mesh Assets Tab
Displays the current list of .DAE files obtained from your computer which are available for potential rendering in-world to view. Objects are listed in the middle section of the tab, together with their assigned LODs. When more that one file is listed, the highlighted file name is the one that will be acted upon.
This tab includes the following buttons:
Add: opens a file picker and allows you to navigate to and select a .DAE file from your computer. When the file is selected and Open in the picker is clicked, the file is added to the list of available .DAE files.
Remove: will remove the highlighted .DAE file from the Local Mesh Assets list and should clears any corresponding in-world object.
Reload: Re-loads the selected file in the Local Mesh list and reapplies it to the Mesh object inworld so use this to applies the most recent edits to your .DAE file to your in-world object.
Clear: Reverts a selected Local Mesh object inworld to it’s normal state (so, if a cube prim was used, the object will revert to a cube).
Apply: if you have a suitable mesh in-world yo can select it and click this button to apply the properties of the file highlighted in Local Mesh Assets to it.
Rez Selected: will prompt you to rez a primitive in-world (via the Build floater, and then applies the properties of the file highlighted in Local Mesh Assets to the rezzed prim.
The Local Mesh workflow
Log Tab
Logging for Local Mesh
If the status of your Local Mesh file in the Local Mesh Assets list shows “Error” instead of “Active”, check the log for the cause of the error.
Settings Tab
Assume scale is in metres:- Ignore the cm scale units used by tools such as Maya,
LOD Suffixes: Choose a standard or manually edit
SL Standard – Lowest is LOD0, High has no suffix
Game Engine Standard – Unity.UES etc, Lowest is LOD3, High is LOD0
LOD names – English LOD names, Lowest is LOWEST, High is HIGH
Converting a Local Mesh to a Local Animesh
Right-click → Edit the required local mesh (in-world or worn).
Add your animations and control scripts to the object.
Select the Features tab in the Build floater and check the Animated Mesh option.
Additional Information
For a complete overview of Local Mesh functionality, please refer to Announcing Local Mesh, by Beq Janus, principal developer of the capability, and which can be found on her blog – which is a must-read for anyone interested in content creation and the technicalities of Second Life. In addition, the ? button of the Local Mesh floater will display web-based Help pages based on the floater tab in which the ? button is clicked.
Building and Scripting – General Updates
Build Floater:
Face selection cycle now starts at face 1 instead of face 0 – FIRE-32282.
Shift+clicking the link/faces button now includes the next face/link into the selection (Build → Select Elements → “Include next part or face” / “Include previous part or face”) – BUG-232757.
Physics updates:
Mesh physics options in mesh upload preview floater
The bounding box now sets a physics cube around the entire mesh even if it is multi part in the mesh uplaoder.
eshes with a hull based (non triangle) user physics will not be convexified when scaled to below 0.5m – BUG-232869 and FIRE-32359.
Animation upload preview on own avatar should no longer fail when the Firestorm AO is enabled – FIRE-32315.
On Friday, September 9th, 2022 (PDT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.3 of their viewer – the first such release since indicating they would be stepping up the cadence of releases with more in the way of “maintenance” cycles in order to better keep place with updates and improvements coming out of Linden Lab with the core viewer code.
Whilst technically a maintenance release, version 6.6.3 is significant for Firestorm users as it includes the Lab’s Performance Improvements code, which for this user yielded noticeable performance improvements in terms of general FPS. In addition, there are a number of additional updates from both the Lab and the Firestorm team.
As per usual, this article is a not a full blow-by-blow breakdown of absolutely everything in this release, but it does include notes on some of the more significant updates and fixes people are liable to find useful, and some general notes.
For a complete breakdown of changes, please see the official release notes for Firestorm 6.6.3.
Sidebar: some may have received a premature notification of this article, together with an invalid URL. My apologies for any confusion: I boobed – sorry!
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 6.6.3.
Linden Lab Updates
Firestorm 6.6.3.67470 is fully merged up to the 6.6.2 Linden code-base, plus some cherry-picked fixes from upstream, per the notes below.
Edit Shape menu previously included every attachment, slowing down preview thumbnails significantly. With this update, only rigged attachments are displayed, in addition to prior avatar preview thumbnails .
Assorted fixes and UI tweaks.
Improved mouse responsiveness in situations where previously it would over-react to inputs.
This update should see reduced image decoding time, decreased frame stalls and decreased initial font rendering time, and the viewer should feel generally more responsive.
These changes include updates to Vsync (vertical synchronisation):
Vsync can now be toggled on / off via Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings.
When enabled, Vsync will synchronise (/cap) frame rates to your monitor screen refresh rate (e.g. if you have a 60 Hz screen, FPS will be capped at 60 fps) and should deliver smoother game-play.
The Performance Improvements viewer also includes the MeshOptimizer Project .
By default, this replaces obsolete GLOD’s mesh simplification in the mesh uploader with the newer and more powerful MeshOptimizer package to provide better level of detail (LOD) modelling during the upload process.
Note that as an option, Firestorm also retains the GLOD capability – see below for more.
This update adds the Tracy Profiler to the viewer to help developers interested in or working on performance improvements. For developers/self-compilers:
Running autobuild configured with –tracy will enable the telemetry.
At any time while running the telemetry recording can be disabled/minimised by deactivating it using the Developer menu entry profiling/telemetry → Profiling .
It contains no other user-visible changes.
Firestorm Updates and Improvements
UI Updates and Improvements
Notecards – Font Style, Size and Colour
Firestorm 6.6.3 brings the following capabilities to Notecards:
Set the font style and size:
Style: one of San Serif, Monospace, Scripting or Cascadia Code.
Size: one of Monospace, Scripting, Cascadia Code, Small, Medium or Large.
These can be set via Preferences → User Interface → Font → Notecard Editor Font drop-downs.
The new Notecard font options in Firestorm’s Preferences
Set the colour of: a notecard background, text, cursor and highlighted text.
Set via Preferences → Colors → Miscellaneous → Notecard Colors .
Note: these setting will only apply to notecards you view in Firestorm. Other users will see the notecards you send in whatever font / colours (if the latter can be set should the FS code be adopted by other TPVs) set within their viewer.
Other UI Updates
Inventory:
It is now possible to open Inventory folders in their own floaters. Right click an inventory folder → Show in new window.
The selection count is now given when deleting multiple items from inventory (FIRE-31816).
With Firestorm 6.6.3 you can open an inventory folder in its own floater
The Create Landmark floater (menu bar → World → Landmark this Place) will now open centred on the viewer window by default.
360-degree snapshot floater should now open at last-used quality setting in a session.
Region Details → Region should now:
Show the correct length of the region name text (no truncations).
Report the correct grid position for the region.
Avatar and Appearance
Avatar:
The avatar should now turn the full 180-degrees when editing appearance (FIRE-31959 / BUG-232502).
All mesh bodies/objects should now show in the shape editor previews (FIRE-31966 / BUG-232503).
Animesh attachments should no longer show in shape editor previews.
Appearance:
Attempted fix for mesh attachments sometimes vanishing after teleports which should either fix / reduce the number of cases where this may occur (FIRE-31906).
Update to the warning given when attaching rigged meshes to HUD.
The new message reads: “An attachment named ”[NAME]“ contains rigged mesh but is attached to the HUD point ”[HUD POINT]“,/a>
Attaching rigged meshes to HUD was never supposed to be supported, per BUG-232489.
As noted above, Linden Lab introduced Mesh Optimizer as a new way to generate improved level of detail (LOD) models for mesh uploads. However, this can lead to higher upload costs and can cause issues in maintaining UV layout. To help prevent issues Firestorm 6.6.3 retains GLOD alongside of Mesh Optimizer.
To this end the Firestorm mesh uploader presents the following options when specifying a model’s LOD:
Load from file: Manually upload .DAE files for models at any level of detail. This enables you to control how your model looks at each level of detail, preserving key visual features that the automated algorithms may otherwise distort. If the viewer could “auto-detect” lower LOD models when it first loaded the model, these will be shown in the corresponding LOD “slots” here.
Generate Auto: Generate a new model at the currently previewed level of detail based on the model you uploaded. This method currently defaults to using the sloppy method and tries to set a target number of triangles based upon the high LOD. This is the method applied when first selecting your model if no auto-detected LODs are found.
Generate Precise: Uses the newer method (Mesh Optimizer) to construct a LOD model. This is more accurate than the “sloppy” method but will result in a more detailed model. Target triangle settings and thresholds are very loosely adhered to.
Generate Sloppy: Uses the newer method (Mesh Optimizer) to construct a LOD model. The “sloppiness” relates to the accuracy of the result compared with the original. Target triangle settings and thresholds are very loosely adhered to .
Generate Reliable: Uses the older method (GLOD) to construct a LOD model. This method is what we have been used to in the past; it gives reliable results based upon the target settings.
The “remaining capacity” LI count has been returned to the Edit / Build floater.
Flip texture scale buttons should no longer “magically jump” when switching texture modes.
The animation preview window should now have a link to the correct wiki page (FIRE-31836).
Full bright rigged meshes should now correctly display as full bright.
Full bright transparent objects should no longer render as solid when using highlight transparent – CTRL-ALT-T (FIRE-31986).
100% transparent objects on HUDs should now show when highlighting transparent – CTRL-ALT-T (FIRE-31917).
The Firestorm Bridge can now display object rez time with the Script info in extended info mode (enabled via Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Enable extended script info details).
Other Updates of Note + Key Fixes
Third-Party Library + RLV Updates
FMOD Studio updated to version to 2.02.07.
Updated Collada with a C++17 compatible version.
Firestorm 6.6.3 is running Restrained Love API RLV v3.4.3 / RLVa v2.4.2.67470, and includes a fix for focus going unexpectedly to menu bar after calling llMapDestination with “@showworldmap=n” (FIRE-31920).
Linux Updates
3p Library Updates:
Boost updated to boost-1.72-linux64-222121224.
Collada updated to colladadom-2.3.222130404-linux64-222130404.
Curl updated to curl-7.81.0.222121724-linux64-222121724.
Libxml updated to libxml2-2.9.4.222130358-linux64-222130358.
Meshoptimizer updated to meshoptimizer-0.16.222121104-linux64-222121104.
Minizip updated to minizip_ng-3.0.2.222121607-linux64-222121607.
New Simple DirectMedia Layer-2 (SDL2) support for Linux to future-proof Firestorm, providing better low-level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D. See the SDL2 Documentation.
The Linux viewer now uses xdg-open ahead of x-www-browser, as requested in FIRE-31929.
OpenSim Updates
There are no OpenSim updates with Firestorm 6.6.3.
Key Fixes
FIRE-31852 – Modified hotkey gestures should no longer play from any window.
FIRE-31823 / FIRE-31648 – torn-off menus should now correctly update enabled/visible state
FIRE-31882, FIRE-31896 / BUG-232463 – The main menu bar should no longer become the focus when minimising docked floater or after changing graphics preset
FIRE-31913 – CTRL+Tab should now correctly switch to the active floater.
Crash fixes:
FIRE-31818 – Firestorm should not longer crash when inspecting a Linden tree.
FIRE-31942 – Firestorm should no longer crash when taking a 360 snapshot when “Improve graphics speed” is enabled – note that this may mean that slower machines timeout during a 360 snapshot, so a new debug setting FSUseCoRoFor360Capture – Use co-routine to extract 360 photos – has been added. By default, this is set to False to prevent crashing. Setting it to True may result in crashes.
Again, please refer to the 6.6.3 release notes for the full list of fixes with this release.
Feedback
As noted towards the top of this article, Firestorm 6.6.3 is the first release of the viewer since the Firestorm team moved towards a faster release cadence, allowing the viewer to pretty much reached parity with the official viewer, which should ease matters of parity going forward, assuming a 6-8 week release cadence can be maintained – and hopefully, it will be.
Probably the most significant inclusion in this release is that of the Lab’s updated viewer code and thread handling, intended to improve general performance. As I noted at the time this code reached release status in the official viewer, this code gave me an average boost of around 20 fps compared to a version without the improvements; in comparing Firestorm 6.5.6 and 6.6.3, I noted a similar fps boost. This is also the first viewer I’ve ready played around with the updated Vsync functionality, and have found that it does offer a far smoother experience for me when flycamming.
Elsewise, I’ve not had a a lot of time to test this release, but have found it to be stable during my personal use, so those updating may want to keep an eye on the Firestorm in-world support groups and the Jira for info on any possible issues.
On Monday, July 25th, 2022, the Firestorm team released version 6.5.6 of their viewer.
This is very much a maintenance update for Firestorm rather than a major release; the focus is very much on bug fixes rather than new features.
That said, it does bring Firestorm closer to the official release viewer, incorporating as t does the April and May official viewer releases code – so with this release, Firestorm embraces multi-factor authentication.
As per usual, this article is a not a full blow-by-blow breakdown of absolutely everything in this release, but it does include notes on some of the more significant updates and fixes people are liable to find useful, and some general notes.
For a complete breakdown of changes, please see the official release notes for Firestorm 6.5.6.
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 6.5.6.
Linden Lab Updates
This release brings Firestorm up to parity with the following Linden Lab viewer releases:
One notable fix in this viewer is for photographers, correcting as it does – BUG-231868 “[MAINT J+K] 360 Snapshot tool fails to save file to computer (Mac and Windows)”
The MFA Release viewer (version 6.5.5.571282, dated May 4th), which rolled multi-factor authentication to the viewer – see below for more.
In addition, Firestorm 6.5.6 includes support for the release of Premium Plus (increased Group allowance, etc).
Multi-Factor Authentication
Firestorm 6.5.6 incorporates Linden Lab’s viewer-side Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) code. This provides additional security to your Second Life account both through the web (e.g. trying to view your billing info or transaction history, trying to cash out (“process credit”) money out of your account, trying to change the e-mail address associated with your account, etc.), and in accessing your account using the viewer. It is entirely optional, and you do not need to use it if you don’t want to – although usage is recommended.
You can find out more on MFA in general by following the links below:
Inclusion of MFA in a viewer means that anyone who has opted to use MFA
Will, the first time they use Firestorm 6.5.6, have to use their preferred authentication method (e.g. Google Authenticator) to generate a new token (6-digit code) and enter it into the viewer when prompted (after entering their user name and password).
The MFA prompt for a token, which will be seen in Firestorm 6.5.6 (and other viewers supporting the Lab’s MFA code) once every 30 days.
Note that some authenticators generate their token as 2 groups of 3 digits (e.g. XXX YYY). Where this is the case, you can enter the code with or without the space.
This token will remain valid for 30 days, as noted above, so you do not have to provide a token every time you log-in to the viewer.
However, after 30 days, the prompt will once again be displayed at log-in, and a new token code will have to be generated in the chosen authentication method, and entered into the viewer in response to the prompt.
If you have not opted to use MFA, or if you later opt to disable MFA on your account, you will not be prompted to provide any authentication code.
Firestorm Updates and Improvements
Phototools
The Shared Environment button on Phototools works with Firestorm 6.5.6
A minor, but nevertheless issue with Phototools since the introduction of the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) capabilities into Firestorm has been the fact that the Shared Environment button (Phototools → Env) has never been properly hooked-up to the EEP controls.
It’s a niggle I pointed to at the time that Firestorm released with EEP incorporated but – and shame on me for not doing so – I never got around to raising a bug report on it.
Fortunately, Spartaco Zemenis did Jira it (see FIRE-31688), with the result that the button has now been properly hooked-in to EEP and clicking it (as with clicking the X button alongside of Personal Lighting) will now revert your viewer’s environment settings to those set for the region / parcel you are current in.
And the difference between the two? X will perform a transition between whatever your current environment settings are and those used within the region / parcel; the Shared Environment button will simple switch the viewer to using the local environment settings without any transition effects.
Skin Updates
The Legacy Skin has been removed as a result of being unmaintained for so long.
The Starlight and Starlight CUI have been updated, and now includes a fix for FIRE-30839 “Camera window not fully opaque at 1.00 and doesn’t have StarLight & Silver Blue support”.
Other Updates and Fixes
Updates
The “Avatars Nearby” list in the performance floater now respects display name/username choice (set via Preferences → General).
New physics warning to the mesh uploader when model dimensions are too thin. Mesh-based physics reverts to convex hull when any single dimension goes below 0.5m, so new warning added should this occur:
One or more dimensions is less than 0.5m, only hull-based (analysed) physics shapes will work correctly.
Debug Setting update: BrowserWebSecurityDisabled – disables web security features in the built-in Web browser.
Firestorm Bridge now uses HTTPS by default.
BUG-231970 “LOD generation does not trigger a refresh” (also fixed in the lab’s Performance Improvement viewer).
FIRE-31074 “Double Click Teleport Stuck On, And Ignoring Modifiers”.
FIRE-31552 “Glowing, 100% transparent prims no longer glow”.
FIRE-31687 “Overlapped windows when you create a pick on the Places floater”.
FIRE-31689 “Wrong folder is shown when creating a LM”.
FIRE-31322 “[Linux] Growl notifications do not show in Gnome 41 or Gnome 42 (Desktop Environment)”.
FIRE-31758 “RLVa: Area Search shows nametags when restrictions in place”.
FIRE-21700 “Full bright not adhering when gamma changed”.
FIRE-31719 “Store camera view fails in Flycam mode”.
FIRE-31406 “FS 6.5.3.65541 Guidebook pane while loading clips content too much”.
FIRE-31472 “When using the Improve Graphic Performance floater some aspects will not work when Framerate Limiter is active”.
Nearby blocked avatars should no longer cause the viewer to randomly hang.
Adds a warning toast as a reminder when there is a scripted followcam active that might stop a camera reset when trying to use SHIFT+ESC to reset camera view.
Crash Fixes
FIRE-31474 “Importing linkset crashes while uploading textures” .
FIRE-31653 “Pressing CTRL + F with “banned” list open in any group profile crashes the viewer to desktop”.
FIRE-31482 “Crashing To Desktop While Using [Legacy events] Search”.
FIRE-31718 “Preprocessor crashes viewer on recursive #include”.
Third-Party Library Updates
FMOD Studio updated to 2.02.06 (Windows, Linux, Mac).
KDU: updated to v8.2 for Linux.
Glib for Linux updated to 2.56.0.220911433-linux64_bionic-220911433.
OpenSim Updates
Fixed: FIRE-31567 “[OpenSim] Wrong delayed rebakes on all teleports/login”.
Fixed: FIRE-31581 “[OPENSIM] TP between grids on different voice services causes infinite loop”
Inventory handling improvements, including:
Fix for FIRE-31634 “[Opensim] Inventory doesn’t load on some grids”.
Fix for FIRE-31674 “[OpenSim] Inventory validation warning for Suitcase folder”.
Allow inventory validation to work in OpenSim with old and grandfathered inventories, without being fatal.
Better inventory validation reporting.
Make the inventory reporting more user friendly.
Make the options for fixing clearer.
Make the nagging notification optional.
Make sure the correct UUID is used for the inventory library in OpenSim
Fixed: FIRE-31628 “[Opensim] Collisions sounds cannot be disabled”.
OpenSim vari-regions:
Try to defend against grid owners who insist on misconfiguring to have more the one neighbour per region edge.
Fixed Firestorm crash due to abuse of vari-regions.
Added Grid Status support for OpenSim “GridStatus” and “GridStatusRSS” – Top menu bar → Help → Check Grid Status.
Reverted some of the changes made to prevent calling card duplication, as the method has changed and the viewer is now responsible for creating calling cards after friendship has formed.
Future Releases
In the past, the Firestorm team has tried to maintain a two-month QA cycle: starting a month after a release, QA on the nest would start with beta testing. This would be followed in the 6th week of the beta cycle by the issuing of a “Release Candidate” for additional testing the the Firestorm Preview Group. Due to the numbers involved in the Preview Group, issues would be found very late in the QA cycle, leading to delays in the release being made.
To try to prevent this in the future, Firestorm is moving to a process of pre-release building being issued to the Preview Group on a weekly basis, monitored by the QA team, working with the Preview Group users in determining what is a bug that should be reported vs what may be an artefact of something unrelated, like a user setting, that can be corrected without the need for exhaustive bug reporting and testing. This will hopefully result in a more frequent release process.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 