Phoenix goes mesh

Yesterday, the much-anticipated release of Phoenix was made. Version 1.6.0 1591 brings with it the ability to render mesh objects.

This means that the majority of users in SL are able to see mesh objects rendered correctly in-world, if not import them. However, the release announcement from Jessica Lyon is liable to make difficult reading for some:

“We stated some time ago our active development commitment is now focused on the Firestorm viewer and that continues today. We still feel strongly that the end of V1 functionality is an inevitability, so it is more important to develop an alternative viewer for our users they will enjoy for when that time comes than to spend our efforts on a dying viewer and then leave our users with no alternative once it’s gone. However, we also promised we would try to keep the phoenix viewer alive for you until it is no longer feasible to do so. As you can see, we are not walking away from that promise, but it is important to understand that Phoenix is no longer our top priority. When necessary we will continue to keep it up to date with advances/fixes from other third-party viewers and provide them the credit they deserve for that work. But ‘we’ are no longer actively developing Phoenix on our own steam.

“Any future releases of Phoenix will be sparse and only if needed. I will not commit to saying this is the last Phoenix Viewer Release, but I will also not commit to saying it isn’t the last either. I will say… this is one of our last. As time passes we will determine if another release is absolutely necessary and/or sensible and make a decision then on whether another update is mandatory in order to keep our promise to you.”

While it may not be a popular move, one can hardly blame Jessica and the team for taking this position: maintaining an aging code base which itself is built on something LL no longer maintain (Snowglobe) is liable to become harder and harder as time goes on, and for a Viewer to remain functional and relevant, it needs to keep pace with the evolution of the grid and as the Phoenix / Firestorm project has made the step of producing a V2/V3 hybrid, it makes sense for them to focus on that work in order to do so, rather than splitting efforts (and doubling the workload) to try and maintain two sets of code.

As well as mesh rendering, this release also brings with it:

• The Firestorm 3.2 log-in / splash screen options
• Contact Sets
• Removal of the Google chat translation API options from Preferences
• A host of “small” fixes and changes

A signficant element not updated was that of RLVa – it was decided that Kitty’s time and focus is better spent on the numerous projects with which she is already fully engaged: her own Viewer (Catznip, reviewed here), working on bringing the spell checker to Viewer 3.x, her continuing support of RLVa for other V2/V3 TPVs, and so on). In the release blog, Jessica suggest that those wishing to update to the latest RLVa implementations should give either Firestorm or Catznip a try.

In the meantime, and if you haven’t already, you can grab Phoenix 1.6.0 1591 directly, or go to the Phoenix home page and use the Quick Download links.

Jumping the chasm: from Phoenix to Firestorm

Note: This topic has been superseded as a result of the release of Firestorm 4.0.1. Comments here have therefore been closed, and you are requested to redirect to Jumping the chasm redux: from V1-style to Firestorm 4 / V3

You’re a Phoenix user. You’ve heard about Firestorm and you’d like to give it a try – but where do you start? I ‘ve written this article in the hope it’ll help those who do want to give Firestorm a go, and get you past some of the issues surrounding using a new user interface and Viewer. I don’t pretend it is an in-depth guide to all the inner workings of Firestorm; that’s a job for the Firestorm wiki. However, I’ve hopefully covered the basics in sufficient enough detail to get you started and to give Firestorm 3.2 a fair shake.

You might also want to read my review of Firestorm 3.2 as well, to get a feel for features and options.

Topics

• Logging-in – modes and presets
• User interface – menu bars, toolbars, buttons, oh my!
• Preferences – a quick start to finding yours
• Camera and movement – floaters, keys, autopilot and all
• Editing your appearance – the easy way
• Conversations and chat
• Notifications – setting your V1-like defaults and other bits
• Radar – where is it?
• Media and media quick preferences
• Viewer-side AO and flight assist.

Logging-In

Choose your desired mode

The first step, obviously (and after downloading the Viewer!), is logging-in to Firestorm 3.2. The Viewer has three modes: Phoenix (default on first starting), V3 and Hybrid. As this article is about moving to Firestorm from Phoenix, I’m assuming you’ll be using the Phoenix mode, which has a series of default pre-sets that mimic Phoenix behaviour, as show in the following table:

USER INTERFACE

Menu Bar and Options

In the default Phoenix mode, the menu bar at the top of the Viewer window is very similar to that of Phoenix itself. This comprises:

• The menu bar, which be default displays your current location, your account balance, a button to purchase L$ your media controls (see below) and the lag meter
• A Navigation Bar and Search Bar – both of which are turned off by default
• A Favourites Bar.

For more information on each of these, please refer to my Menu Bar quick reference  (opens in a new window / tab).

Menus

Firestorm’s menus are radically different Phoenix, and may seem very alien. However, they actually present information a lot more logically (AVATAR, for example, gathers together options common to using your avatar; COMM(unicate) lists the various communications options, and so on). Rather than explain all the differences at length, I’ve put together a mini-guide to the Firestorm menus, highlighting key elements in each to help you get familiar with them.

Toolbar

At the bottom of the Firestorm window is the Toolbar. This comprises three areas: the Chat Bar (left) and the notification area on the right – both of which are described in turn below – and a series of buttons in the middle:

• Right-click on the toolbar to display a list of buttons; check those you wish to display, uncheck those you want to hide
• Note you cannot hide the Conversations button
• Click and hold the left mouse button over the button you wish to move and drag it to the position in the toolbar your like it to appear – positions will persist even if the button is later removed from the toolbar.

SHORTCUT KEYS

The majority of shortcut keys and key combinations common to Viewer 1.x / Phoenix work in Firestorm / Viewer 3. A full list of supported shortcuts can be found here.

PREFERENCES

Firestorm’s Preferences tabs not only have different names to Phoenix, they also organise options differently (and more logically). The following table is designed to help you quickly set the more commonly used Preferences within Firestorm.

Quick preferences – click to enlarge

A more extensive table can be viewed which provides a more in-depth cross-referencing between Preferences in Phoenix and those in Firestorm. When setting Preferences note that:

• Not all of Phoenix’s preferences have been incorporated into Firestorm
• Some Preferences listed in Phoenix are excluded from Firestorm as they are now common defaults within the Viewer
• Firestorm has a range of preferences that are not available in V1 Viewers, and you may need to familiarise yourself with these.

CAMERA AND MOVEMENT

Camera

The camera floater can be opened directly from your toolbar using the Camera button, or via AVATAR->CAMERA CONTROLS.

When opened for the first time, the camera floater will appear over the Camera button; click on the blank space on the top bar to position it on your screen: the position will persist between log-ins, or if the camera floater is turned off.

Movement Floater

• The movement floater can be enabled directly from the Movement button, or via AVATAR->MOVE CONTROLS
• Includes three buttons, allowing you to toggle between walk, run and fly
• All three buttons replaced by STOP FLYING when FLY toggled on.

WASD Movement

• By default, Phoenix mode disables WASD movement – pressing any letter key will focus on the Chat Bar (opening it if it has been hidden – see below)
• To enable movement using the WASD keys, go to AVATAR->PREFERENCES-GENERAL and on the right side, enable the radio button for AFFECTS MOVEMENT under PRESSING LETTER KEYS (can also be set through AVATAR->CHAT-> GENERAL)

Autopilot

Firestorm supports both single and double-click autopilot. So if you use double-click to teleport, you can also set a single-click autopilot function:

• Go to AVATAR->PREFERENCES->MOVE & VIEW->GENERAL
• Set SINGLE CLICK ON LAND to MOVE TO CLICKED POINT.

EDITING YOUR SHAPE

While you can edit your shape via AVATAR->APPEARANCE or by clicking the APPEARANCE button, getting to the option can be confusing. The quickest way to edit your shape in Firestorm is to right-click of your avatar and:

• If you are using the pie menu: select APPEARANCE>->EDIT SHAPE
• If you are using the context menu, simply click on EDIT SHAPE.

Note that the Edit Shape panel has been revised (right).

The Appearance panel is linked directly to the MY OUTFITS folder, listing any outfits you have set-up, allowing you to quickly and easily change (however, it will not display outfits in any sub-folders you may have created in your Inventory). It also includes links to create new items of clothing including tattoo, alpha and physics layers), as well as editing your shape / currently worn outfit.

Torley explains more about APPEARANCE in a video (uses Viewer 2 terms like “Change Outfit”, rather than “Appearance”).

CHAT BAR AND CONVERSATIONS PANEL

Chat Bar

Depending on the number of buttons you opt to display, you can increase the size of the Chat Bar using the slider to the right of the Conversations button, and move left / right to decrease / increase chat space.

Like Phoenix, the Firestorm Chat Bar can be hidden:

• Go to AVATAR->PREFERENCES-> CHAT->FIRESTORM and check AUTOHIDE MAIN CHAT BAR
• The Chat Bar is now hidden, and will respond as per Phoenix: tap ENTER to display it, type your text and tap ENTER to send it and close the Chat Bar
• ESC will also close the Chat Bar when HIDE is enabled

Additional notes:

• By default, WASD movement is disabled in the Phoenix mode. Providing you have not enabled it, pressing any letter key will either a) focus on the Chat Bar (if visible) or b) open the Chat Bar and focus on it (if hidden)
• If you have enabled WASD movement, use ENTER to focus on the Chat Bar
• If you prefer not to have the Chat Bar hidden, but want to have focus returned to your in-world view after pressing ENTER:
  • Go to AVATAR->PREFERENCES-> CHAT->FIRESTORM
  • Check DESELECT CHAT AFTER SENDING MESSAGES

Conversations Panel

The Conversations panel performs the same role as Communicate in Phoenix: it acts a wrapper for your Contacts List, local chat conversations and all IM windows (which are tabbed vertically by default).

• Conversations panel can be opened via:
  • COMM->CONVERSATIONS
  • Clicking the CONVERSATIONS button to the right of the Chat Bar
  • Pressing CTRL-T
• Local chat is called Nearby Chat in Firestorm
• Like Phoenix, Nearby Chat and individual IM conversations can be undocked from the Conversations panel
• Using AVATAR->PREFERENCES->CHAT->GENERAL, you can:
  • Set IMs to display as tabs in the Conversations panel or in their own windows through
  • Set the Tab orientation in Conversations to either vertical (default) or horizontal
  • Both options will require a Viewer re-start to take effect.

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Firestorm and Phoenix: updates and support notes

This week’s Phoenix Hour saw a couple of guests sharing the sofa with Jessica: Ed Merryman and Lette Ponnier, who would be joining Jessica and Phaylen in a discussion on matters relating to Viewer support. Ed actually heads-up the Viewer support side of the Phoenix / Firestorm group, and both he and Lette provide classes in using Firestorm.

To kick things off, however, Jessica ran though the latest status for both Phoenix and Firestorm before going on to pass comment on the new LL Viewer UI – which, at the time of her comments, was about to be merged with the Development Viewer code but had not actually been released for anyone to see.

The Viewers

Overall, not a lot has changed since my last report on The Phoenix Hour – the team are really waiting on LL to resolve issues their end before making any further releases of either Phoenix or Firestorm.

Phoenix Status

• The mesh rendering code, supplied by Henri Beauchamp, is in the Phoenix code repository
• The current graphic issues being experienced with the Firestorm Mesh Beta (and other mesh-capable Viewers) will be in the code for mesh rendering in Phoenix; Jessica estimated that around 50% of people using mesh-enabled Viewers are caught with the issue (basic shaders causing Viewer crashes)
• This issues are Linden Lab issues, and as such, Phoenix is being held pending a fix or fixes from the Lab
• The team have been working with LL with these bugs, and a version of Firestorm would be pushed to the Beta group to assist with further testing on the working being undertaken to fix things.

Firestorm Status

• The next release of Firestorm is good to go, but again awaiting the GPU-related fixes from Linden Lab
• All blocking issues from with the Firestorm project that might have delayed a release have now been resolved
• There are still a number of targets the team would like to achieve prior to a release, but these are not blockers to a release; so if a graphics fix comes out of LL before all the targets have been reached, a release may still go ahead
• Issues and fixes for Firestorm can be tracked via the project JIRA – although people will need to register in order to gain access
• Focus has been placed on Firestorm locking-up and going into “(not responding)” mode and also inventory load times; Nicky Dasmijn has, in Jessica’s words, “Made a world of difference” to the issues
  • Jessica is convinced even those who didn’t have major inventory load time issues are going to notice a significant performance improvements as a result of this work once the new release can be rolled out
  • As an example of the improvements, she stated her own 72K+ inventory now takes around 20 seconds to load!
• While the new mesh uploader will be in the next release, as per the last Phoenix Hour, there are some issues around the physics weight calculations for mesh objects (which are presumably being worked on)
• New feature: Jessica revealed during discussions that a new feature has been added to Firestorm for the next release: right-click -> reload texture. This forces the server to re-send a given texture (worn or on a prim) which has failed to rez.

So to repeat: progress on both Phoenix and Firestorm has been good, but until the graphics issues are resolved by Linden Lab, there will not be any releases. As a side note, Jessica and Ed said the Lab themselves are indicating it will possibly take another two weeks of effort on the Lab’s part to resolve the issues – but this is not guaranteed.

New Official Viewer UI

Jessica expressed disappointment around the way in which Linden Lab has handled the  new Viewer 3.x UI, going so far as to state the view that working “in secret” on the UI was “Wrong. In so many ways”. Given the degree with which TPV developers working on V3-based code have been trying to make the Viewer more accessible and acceptable to die-hard V1.x users, one has to admit it is hard not to agree with her – although not necessarily for the reasons she cites.

Had the Phoenix team, for example, been made aware of LL’s plans, they could have made a choice as to whether to pursue the massive amount of effort they’ve put into creating a V1-style option for the Firestorm UI or whether to direct that effort elsewhere – such as in supplying even more help to LL in trying to resolve the current graphics problems. As it stands, a lot of effort on the part of the team may well have been wasted, and LL have run the risk of alienating TPV developers who might otherwise be well-placed to assist them with future issues.

However, the flip side to this is, of course, that the new UI hasn’t been developed “in secret” in the strictest sense. While the code may have been developed without much in the way of consultation with the user community, Linden Lab nevertheless do have over 18 months of considerable feedback from users on the Viewer 2 UI. They’ve also taken positive steps to better understand its limitations for themselves, as demonstrated at SLCC 2011. Ergo, the redevelopment work isn’t directly comparable to the situation that brought about Viewer 2.0, with the work being carried out in an apparent vacuum.

Support

The core of the show was devoted to support issues – especially in relation to Firestorm, but some of which also applied to Phoenix. This started with a review of the Firestorm courses the team offer, the schedule for which can be found on the Phoenix / Firestorm wiki, before moving on to the most common issues the support team deal with.

Bake Fail

Bake fail is the number one issue for the Phoenix / Firestorm support team, despite the fact it is not actually a Viewer issue per se. Rather it is a server-derived issue involving a communications failure, such as between the server and your computer, or the server and someone else’s computer / a group of computers. Typical examples of each are:

• Everyone else sees you in an outfit you just changed into, but you still see yourself in the previous outfit = you have suffered bake fail
• You see yourself wearing the outfit you’ve just changed into, but others see you still in your previous outfit = others have suffered bake fail.

Oz Linden has defined this problem as being the result of a series bugs within the rendering pipe (not all of them directly connected with bake fail itself) that have individually been treated with a band-aid at the time they occurred, with each bug causing the next bug in the chain. This has resulted in an issue that – as much as Oz has stated he’d personally like to see fixed – is next to impossible to sort out without significant time and effort (and risk) being put into the rendering pipe itself – a piece of code LL tend to treat with the utmost caution.

Once again, Phoenix provide a wiki page with information on how to fix a bake fail problem.

Back-up Your Appearance

Ed makes a point of expressing the value in making sure you make a “backup” copy of your appearance as far as you can – skin, hair shape & suitable clothing. If you have severe rendering issues, and REPLACE CURRENT OUTFIT isn’t available as an inventory option because it is grayed-out, drag the folder with the back-up from your inventory and drop it onto your avatar.

Blurry Textures

If your avatar bakes, then the textures go blurry, you rebake & go blurry, try:

• Reducing your texture memory allotment by around 75% of the current setting
  • Firestorm: PREFERENCES -> GRAPHICS -> HARDWARE SETTINGS
  • Phoenix: PREFERENCES -> GRAPHICS -> HARDWARE OPTIONS
• Reducing the number of HTTP concurrent requests by around 50% of the current setting
  • Firestorm: PREFERENCE -> GRAPHICS -> RENDERING
  • Phoenix: PREFERENCES -> PHOENIX -> PAGE 2 -> ADVANCED GRAPHICS
• If both of these fail to resolve the issue, disable the HTTP Get function entirely (uncheck USE HTTP TEXTURES in Firestorm or GET HTTP TEXTURES in Phoenix, which are contained in the respective Viewer Preferences tabs defined in the above steps. If you disable the option, make sure you clear cache to avoid texture corruptions.

HTTP get texture options – possible aid in resolving avatar blurring issues

I See Grey People

An interesting tip from Ed Merryman formed a part of the bake fail discussion: if you see a grey avatar or avatars near you, don’t ask them to rebake – try changing your Group tag.

DNS Issues

Lette offer a number of solutions were offered for those experiencing a DNS related error on trying to log-in to Second Life:

• Check your anti-virus software, some anti-virus software mistakenly view the Viewer as somehow harmful / trying to make an illegal connection and block it from doing so (some may even throw out a virus infection warning)
• Try flushing your DNS cache
• Change your DNS server to Google Public DNS or OpenDNS.

DNS errors appear to be on the increase across all Viewers, although why this should be isn’t clearly understood at this point in time.

The Phoenix / Firestorm Wiki

One of the best places to get help for either Phoenix or Firestorm is through the wiki. This includes details on basic troubleshooting, dealing with issues such as bake fail (as described above) and information on Firestorm classes, etc. The wiki also has a number of pages that cover broader issues and items, including:

• The hot LL JIRA list – those items that are on the Linden Lab JIRA as known issues
• The hot Firestorm JIRA list “hot” bugs and feature requests for Firestorm

Both of these pages are being continually updated, so people are asked to take a peek at them when encouraging issues.

The Phoenix Team Halloween Party

At 14:00 SLT on Saturday 29th October, the Phoenix team will be hosting its second annual Halloween Costume Party. Arrangements are still being made, but details and an LM will be sent out via the support group nearer the date.

See the show in full on Metamix TV.

Mesh, Phoenix and the future

Jessica Lyon has issued a statement on the Phoenix website concerning the future of the Viewer. It makes interesting and clear reading.

On Mesh

A release of Phoenix will be forthcoming that can render mesh objects in-world. Jessica makes it absolutely clear that credit for this largely goes to Henri Beauchamp and his work in backporting the Viewer 2.x/3.x rendering code into Cool Viewer. She also makes it clear that the Phoenix implementation pretty much is Henri’s code as is. In the post, Jessica states:

“I don’t want you all thinking we’ve changed our focus back on phoenix, truth is we haven’t. Ansariel handled all the work of pulling Henri’s work into phoenix, LGG has helped. Aside from Tonya and Tech fixing some of the bugs.. That’s it.. essentially we’ve only had two developers working on this, and there are no plans to increase development on phoenix beyond that. However, mesh in phoenix will accomplish two things. It will complete [the] adoption of mesh in SL, which is pretty cool actually. But equally important, it will also fulfill our promise to keep phoenix going until it’s dying day.”

She also gives a stark warning on Phoenix with mesh rendering:

“Speaking of QA, don’t expect phoenix to be just like the last release only now it has mesh support. This work effectively makes Phoenix a Ford Pinto with a diesel engine from a school bus duct taped into it. Not only will it have all the existing mesh related bugs, but it will have plenty of its own bugs specific to having a diesel engine in a Ford Pinto. It will have a negative effect on crash rates no doubt, will be a performance drop for some, an increase for others. It will not be perfect, as it is not designed to support mesh.”

On RLVa

Jessica has also indicated that the next Phoenix release will have an update to RLVa as a result of Kitty Barnett’s hard work as well. Details aren’t clear, but one assumes this will bring it into line with the updated RLVa seen in Firestom.

On the Future

Jessica is unequivocal as to the future however: Viewer 1.x is, in her opinion, on its deathbed where SL is concerned, and as such, trying to maintain the Phoenix code on a par with Viewer 3 is going to be too much of a headache. As she points out:

“Consider this.. it took over 9 months to get mesh to work in a v1 viewer.. it took us just over 2 weeks to merge mesh into Firestorm once we started the merge. This will be the pattern with all new things LL releases, making it work in Firestorm or a v2 based viewer will be far easier to adopt faster than making it work on a v1. Maintaining v1 long-term is just not being realistic.”

No date is given for a release of Phoenix with mesh rendering capabilities, other than it will be released once it has passed QA.

The release is also liable to mark the end of the road for Phoenix where non-SSE2 capable computers are concerned. The release for such machines will not include mesh rendering support.

Overall, this news is liable to be met with approval from Phoenix users not yet ready to make the jump to Firestorm and might, conceivably ease some of the pressure on the Firestorm team to get some of the current bugs and issues with the latest Beta release ironed out.

And on the subject of Firestorm, Jessica did offer a small tease: “Mesh upload capability is also under development and making some promising advancements thanks to Nicky Dasmijn.”

Read the full blog post.