What dreams may come: Kirstenlee further updates S19

Kirstenlee Cinquetti has issued a further update to the S19 version of Kirsten’s Viewer – version S19 1.19.4 (407). Released on Thursday May 16th, 2013, the update primarily fixes a nasty cache crash when user settings and local cache are manually deleted.

There have been a lot of questions as to why the S19 (v1-style) viewer from Kirsten’s stable is being updates rather than the S22/S23 viewers. In a blog post accompanying the release, Kirsten/Lee gives an answer:

So I guess the most pertinent question is why? It is probably the most pointless one to answer also.

But lets just take a wild stab at it!

I need to be in SL occasionally so I need a viewer (Duh), V2 is dead sorry S22 it was fun, V3 is well lets just say it’s not my cup of tea. I could just download someone else’s viewer but thats not what I want.

I LIKE S19 it was and still is quick, its code in comparison to newer clients is simpler it has much more modest hardware demands I can merge from many sources more rapidly etc, etc, etc..
It ticks all my boxes, on a more personal note it’s NOT limited to Second Life.

That is important to me, so it may have bugs, it may not compile on macs very well… sorry.

But if I wish to drift around SL or jump into Opensim I can.. anyway hope that kinda answers some of my motivations, and why I share the corresponding installer.

As mentioned in my last piece marking the “return” of the S19 viewer, and people shouldn’t anticipate routine updates and improvements; as Lee indicates in his bog post, this viewer has been updated and is being tweaked purely to suit his needs – and rightly so.

A couple of notable changes have been made since version S19.1.19.4.(404), the last version I used. Preferences have been moved from their “traditional” location in the File menu to appear under the S19 menu, and Depth of Field (DoF) has been added to the Graphics tab, in a dedicated sub-tab.

DoF is back!

Sadly for me, I’m unable to test DoF, as deferred will not run on my hardware set-up, no matter how I fiddle with AA (which was Lee’s suggestion to me after I’d encountered problems with the 404 build). But then, as I noted last time, while I’ve always like Kirsten’s Viewer, my hardware has tended to sulk badly when using it.

However, for those of you missing Kirsten’s Viewer, here’s yet another update for you! Going on feedback following my original piece on S19′s return (in comments, IMs and DMs), it’s good to know the viewer still has loyal fans!

Related Links

• Kirstenlee’s blog
• Kirsten’s S19 viewer on Google Code
• Kirsten’s Viewer in this blog

SL projects update week 18 (1): viewer, SSB/A and materials

Server-side Baking / Appearance

The viewer-side SSB/A code continued in the SL beta viewer with a release on April 24th (3.5.1.274588). However, the crash rates from that version were sufficiently low for the go-ahead to be given for the deployment of the SL viewer with the SSB/A code incorporated, which reached public release on April 30th (3.5.1.274821).

SSB/A in the SL release viewer: I’m running the SSB/A-enabled SL release viewer and can see both myself and my alt (running SSB/A-enabled Firestorm) rendered correctly, and she can see fully rendered.

This now means that the following viewers and clients are, at the time of writing, now SSB/A capable:

• SL viewer 3.5.1.274821 (release)
• Firestorm 4.4.0.33270 (release)
• Kokua 3.5.2.27969 (development)
• Nirans 2.2.0.2692 (alpha test)
• Cool VL 1.26.8.2 (stable release)
• Kirstens S19.1.19.4 (unsupported)
• Singularity 1.8.0.4114 (release)
• Lumiya 2.4.4 (release)
• Metabolt version 0.9.66.0 (Beta)
• Radegast 2.12 (release)

The remaining major players for Second Life – Catznip, Dolphin and Exodus will doubtless have SSB/A versions out in the very near future.

Z-offset

Cinder Roxley is working on an alternate approach to the issue of the z-offset and is meeting with some success. However, there is still a problem with the distance offset being inconsistently reported between the user’s viewer and by other viewers (so the avatar may appear at a different height above ground / an object when seen by others in comparison to how they see their own height. Cinder is continuing to work on the problem. If she is successful, the code will doubtless be made available to all TPVs should they wish to adopt it.

Current Outfit Folder Corruption

I reported on this issue in week 17, wherein a Current Outfit Folder (COF) corruption can leave a user unable to log-in to SL and – unless they have a Premium account – beyond official help. This has been something of a longstanding issue, as per JIRA SVC-7653, and has an associated work-around. The concern here is that the workaround will no longer work once SSB/A is enabled server-side.

Commenting on the situation, Nyx Linden said, “we’re looking into a number of fixes around COF for followup releases,” before going on, “Yep, we have people looking at this. Please do continue to let us know as you see cases come up. I’ll sync up with our engineers looking at this and make sure that we have these cases covered.”

SUN-69

Whirly Fizzle recently reported an issue arising from the recent SSB/A code – removing any worn item from avatar results in all temp attachments being taken off (see JIRA SUN-69). This problem occurs whether or not an avatar is on SSB/A regions. It was first noted in the SL development and beta viewers, but appears common to all viewers with the SSB/A code, including the new release version of the viewer referred to above (3.5.1.274821).

Server-side Deployment

With the arrival of the viewer SSB/A code into the SL release viewer, deployment of the server-side code is liable to commence on the main grid. As previously noted in these updates, the plan is for a “constrained” number of regions on Agni to be SSB/A-enabled in order to load test the system. It appears likely that these regions will not be a part of the normal Release Candidate channels (although this is not absolutely clear).

The purpose of this action will be to further stress / load test the new server-side baking service and (hopefully) ensure there is sufficient hardware deployed to support the capability and that there are no unexpected issues arising from large numbers of people starting to the use the system.

You can’t keep a good viewer down – Kirsten’s S19

The blog post says it all – “old school” – a simple message with a lot of meaning. Kirstenlee Cinquetti has been twiddling under the hood with the S19 (v1-style) version of Kirsten’s Viewer with the result that an updated version – code-named “Blackbird” (version S19.404 at the time of writing) was released via Google Code on Wednesday 24th April.

This is the second time there has been a surprise update to one of Kirstenlee’s viewers – in September 2012 a couple of updates were made to the v2-style S22 viewer. As with those updates, the new release of S19 does not mean that Kirstenlee is returning to the field of viewer development per se. Nor is this a complete update – although it does incorporate a lot of v3 code and is Server-side Baking ready.  As it stands, the release – as with the S22 releases in September 2012 – is offered “as is” and without support – and there is no time scale or firm commitment where further updates are concerned.

As readers, know, I’m not a fan of the v1-style interface, but I admit there is something pleasing about loading and running this release – quiet possibly because it is one of Kirstenlee’s builds, which, despite the odd hiccup between the viewer and my hardware, I’ve always felt pretty much at home with. Perhaps it’s the green .

Some of the New Bits

I’m not proposing an in-depth review, but here are some of the main features in the update.

Server-side Baking / Appearance: as mentioned above, this update is “server-side baking / appearance ready – it will render avatars correctly on SSB/A-enabled regions and avatars using the viewer will render correctly to others. However, the new “hover” mode partial z-offset “fix” is not included in the Edit Appearance floater.

SSB/A-OK: O the left – S19 Blackbird rendering my Alt (on the SL SSB/A beta viewer) and I correctly on an SSB/A-enabled region; on the right – I render correctly in my Alt’s view

Mesh Uploads: Nicky Dasmijn’s mesh uploader is included in this release of S19, again bringing it into line with other viewers and the age of mesh.

Anaglyph [3D] rendering: Kirsten first introduced 3D rendering in the S22 viewer. While still very experimental, with all the interest in Oculus Rift, its inclusion in S19 with this release is perhaps a little pertinent and timely as a means of generating a 3D view in a viewer.

If you have 3D glasses, Kirsten’s latest S19 (404+) gives you a 3D world

Restrained Love: RLV comes to Kirsten’s viewer with a dedicated preferences panel which includes the ability to set a “profile” against your RLV use – one of “BDSM Persona-Player”, “BDSM Role-player” and “Non-BDSM”. These define how many (and which) RLV controls can be blacklisted (i.e. prevented from operating), so that, for an example, someone using the “Non-BDSM” option can make use of options such as automatic chat redirection, shared folders for changing outfits and “forced” teleports which necessarily having to also have the more restrictive RLV options active.

RLV comes to Kirsten’s Viewer – complete with a set of “profiles”

Pathfinding: Kirsten’s Viewer S19 also gains options to display pathfinding information on linksets and characters. These options are on the Tools menu. As S19 supports OpenSim, there is no navmesh visualisation as there is no Havok sub-licence agreement.

Comments

Overall, this is a sudden and interesting update to Kirsten’s original v1-style viewer, incorporating a lot of v3 code which more than makes it capable of running on today’s grid. On the whole I found it to be stable, and with performance levels I’ve tended to get from Klee’s builds (somewhat lower than with other builds for reasons I’ve never fully fathomed). I did encounter an odd issue – while I could run the viewer in deferred mode, when I enabled shadows, my in-world view turned black, and refused to come out of its sulk until I disabled shadows once more. Whether this was due to a problem with the viewer, or simply another of the hiccups which seem to occur between my hardware an Klee’s viewer builds at times, I couldn’t say.

There are a few bits missing from the update as well – no Depth of Field for photographers, for example, (although Dawny Daviau, Kirstenlee’s partner, tells me this might be coming). So don’t expect it to be fully up to S22 / v3 standards in terms of options, etc.

Again, this release is not a return of Kirsten’s viewer per se, although there is an open invitation for those who like the viewer or the v1-approach to give it a go. Just remember, support isn’t given – and it may be a while before a further update arrives.

In the meantime, some more 3D, this time courtesy of a video demonstration from Chantal Harvey, filmed back when the capability first appeared in Kirsten’s Viewer.

Related Links

• Kirstenlee’s blog
• Kirsten’s S19 viewer on Google Code
• Kirsten’s Viewer in this blog

With thanks to Dawny Daviau.

Niran’s Viewer turns 2

NiranV Dean has been back working on Niran’s Viewer, and in doing so has lifted the viewer to version 2.0 with a number of initial Betas. On Wednesday October 24th, he made a final release, 2.0.2185, which he calls Niran’s Viewer Rebooted, given the amount of additional work put into it, which finally saw him bypass his planned 1.5 release.

As the last release of Niran’s Viewer in these pages was version 1.46, the following will touch on elements previously released in 1.47 – 1.49 as well.

Download and Installation

The download file remains an archive EXE, rather than an actual installer, and is just on 50MB in size. It will extract the files into a default directory Nirans Viewer in C:\Program Files. If you’ve had a previous version of Niran’s Viewer installed, it is strongly recommended that you remove it first, together with all cache and settings files. The viewer itself has no uninstaller, some removal is a matter of deleting the program folder. The locations for all three are:

• Viewer: C:\Program Files\NiransViewer (delete this entire folder)
• Cache: C:\Users\[user name] \AppData\Local\NiransViewer (delete this folder)
• Settings: C:\Users\[user name] \AppData\Roaming\NiransViewer (delete this folder and all sub-folders inside).

First Time Running

Once you’ve made your initial keyboard camera preferences selection, the log-in screen features a new video from NiranV. I have to admit, I’m curious as to the music track and whether it is taken from something or original, as I rather like the keyboard arrangement in it.

Watch a video while entering your login credentials

You may get an anti-virus alert relating to the SLVOICE.EXE plugin – if you do, make sure that it is the plugin being referenced and clear it. The log-in splash screen is again liable to be something of a surprise to first-time users. There is no familiar splash screen feed from Linden Lab here. Instead, and providing you’re running flash, there’s a YouTube video NiranV has put together and which will play while you enter your log-in credentials in the panel to the right.

Note that Niran’s Viewer isn’t intended for use on OpenSim, so the other grids selection is limited to the SL Agni (main) and Aditi (Beta) grids. Once you’ve entered your you log-in credentials, you’re treated to a series of hints and tips as the viewer logs-in to Second Life.

Preferences Overlay

Niran’s alternative to the usual Preferences floater started appearing in version 1.46 of the viewer, where he referred to it as his “Skyrim influence”. It’s slowly been maturing through a number of releases since then, and with version 2.0, it completely replaces the old Preferences floater, which is no longer available within the viewer.

Accessed via the Preferences toolbar button, CTRL-P or NV->EDIT->PREFERENCES, the overlay does exactly what it says – overlays the in-world view.

Preferences Overlay with a submenu displayed

To the left of the overlay are the main options: Display, Audio Controls, Camera, Chat, User, Interface and Viewer. Depending on the complexity of the screens / options associated with this, clicking on one of them may display a panel directly, or may open-up a sub-menu of further options which in turn will open up individual panels on the right of the overlay.

Preferences overlay with an open panel

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