Disclaimer

Black Dragon is MY Viewer, i decide which feature i want to add and which to remove, i share this Viewer to show the world that user base size is not important, i do rate quality by effort, thought and love put into the project, not some rough estimated numbers. I consider feature requests only if i you can name proper valid reasons i can agree on. It is my (unpaid) time i'm putting into this project, i'm not here to cater to every Joe's desires.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Beta 2.1.0 (2471)

Clear the viewer folder! Clear your cache! Clear your settings if you're coming from pre-2.0.7!


Blub,

We have [RANDOM_NUMBER] bananas, read them below. ;P

User Interface:


I've implemented several new loadingscreen pictures for viewing pleasure =3 you can see one of them in the "Snapshots" section, they all were taken in 4000x2204 forsuperb quality...just to get downscaled to 1200x661 :P

I've taught my UI some new tricks, it's now possible to set a max width and height via XML in any floater effectively preventing rescaling beyond those values.

I've fixed the "Edit linked" checkbox which was invisible...and renamed it to "Edit linked parts"

Rendering:


I updated SSR for class 1 shader (will be disabled in future anyway, but just in case...) and reduced sun glowyness with SSR on to normal Deferred shiny levels, i also disabled the legacy shiny rendering in SSR (higher shiny = darker texture reflecting a cubemap even in closed rooms, making stuff look like shit)

Misc, regarding Firestorm-hate, my Viewer and all that...:


Donations: some people keep asking about a "Donate" button, there is none do not waste your time searching for it. I dont have one because i feel bad for taking money for something that must stay 100% at any cost. You can however "donate" me L$, given you provide me a good reason ("because its good" doesnt count), a friend also told me about a nice idea. To make my conscience halfway happy i will add anyone donating more than 500L$ to the "Special Thanks" page in Help -> About Nirans Viewer. Everyone who has already donated more than 500L$ will also be added, if you come to me and IM me (best would be with a Transaction ID from the Second Life's website (Transaction History)).

Kickstarter, Crowdfounding & co: Please no. This also isn't something you can just set up and "surprise" me with, i would have to do that on my own, which i wont. The Idea is charming but no, this is just 3 steps too far over the ledge, its nearly the same shit Kirsten did. Im not Kirsten.

Viewer ending: Calm down, i said (i've sworn) that the next "Release" will be the last one. I've never said that Beta's count towards this, i also havn't clearly said when this Release will be. My Viewer has a way too unfinished feel to just drop it as it is right now.

Firestorm-hate: So... why do i hate Firestorm? Why do i use any possible chance to shout them down in the corner they belong to? Several reasons:
???-Emerald-Phoenix-Firestorm,
Slow progression with a huge Team,
personal stuff,
them thinking really bad things about me,
my automatic hate against all un-understandable popular stuff (like Justin Bieber and Tokio Hotel as example)
their fear of their own userbase and all the bad things it causes... bad decisions which can be best described as "handholding" features (in other words the whole back/forporting of V1 shit, general support for V1 and legacy stuff...all that).

The last thing probably resembles 99% of my hate. It throws so many questions at me with lots of ???????. Why did they support V1 for so long? Why are they still "supporting" it by porting V1 shit over to V3? Why do they add so useless features for "not-so-advanced" (well lets just call them dumb, because well most Firestorm/Phoenix users ARE dumb) people to support their "lazyness" and "stupidy"? Why dont they just tell their userbase to STFU and get along with it? Why dont they stop beeing handholding, "dumb" supporting "idiots", wasting their goddamn free time to make them even more "dumb"? Do they fear their userbase? Do they fear them saying "hey why isnt shit like i want, do it nao or we will leave SL/dont use your Viewer anymore"? Why do they waste so much potential?

I mean i really i dont understand why they dont tell those idiots to shut up and get along with it, they're getting a Viewer for FREE and they still complain about it, they are wasting THEIR free time just to waste even MORE free time because such idiots complain about everything. Cant they just arrive in 2013 and drop those idiots? do they really have to play the babysitter and try to make everyone happy? is that really necessary Firestorm?! Y U DO DIS, STOP IT, YOU CRIPPLE AND SLOW DOWN EVOLUTION, YOU DELAY THE FUTURE, YOU DO ALL THIS BECAUSE OF IDIOTS WHO CAN'T GET THEIR DAMN MIND RIGHT TO ACCEPT CHANGE! FUCKING STOP IT!

Todo's:


I still have a few todo's which i will mostly focus on for next Beta, those are:


translate Clear History in Privacy
correct default values in advanced graphics
add more default values in advanced graphics
align all sliders in advanced graphics
fix menus closing whenever a toast closes
redo/check spellcheck floater
redo/check autocorrect floater
translate spellcheck floater
translate autocorrect floater
translate color customization floater
fix RLVa force teleport via send teleport
clean up code
implement fix for textures unloading behind you
implement Server Side Baking
disallow SSR with class 1 shaders (AO and Shadows off)
make tools floater autoresize if space is available
merge LL beta
conquer the world
be totally brain afk on tuesday and probably the whole week due to ME3's new DLC


Snapshots:








enjoy (as long as you can muahahaha....),
Niran
*moans* bed time...

Changelog:


2.1.0

updated SSR for class 1 shader
added the ability to use max_height/max_width in XML for floaters
added 6 all new loadingscreen pictures
removed legacy shiny rendering from SSR
tweaked sun shininess/glow on surfaces with SSR on to SSR-less values
fixed "Edit linked" beeing invisible
renamed "Edit linked" to "Edit linked parts"
cleaned up floater code
cleaned up toasts code and simplified fading code
cleaned up tools floater code a bit
cleaned up special thanks slightly and added L4n4 for donations

36 comments:

  1. Lol, I am a Firestorm user and I was a bit entertained reading your comments. This doesn't mean I support it blind or whatever, but I'd like to add some here. I love your viewer but I CAN'T use it, mostly cause my computer can't handle it. Then I get some glitches that throws me back and stability. No, I am not here to complain, but to share a different point of view. I think there is people of all kind in this world and hey!, no one gets to tell anyone what to do (or what viewer to use). I honestly think yours is the next, and what SL should be or have been at these times. So keep the good work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somewhere later in the text i go more into detail about what kind of people i mean, just so no one can say i mean "all" of them, just "most" (50.1% makes it most already, keep that in mind and i'm sure more than 75% of them are such complaining-but-non-thankfully people)

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    2. Your viewer is the first viewer to have ever made night-time in SL "fun" for me. I mean, I can't use deferred rendering because my monitor must be too low resolution for it to look good or something. (all lines lose their smoothness for me, as though antialiasing is gone, and nothing I change seems to help it except to turn DR off), but even without deferred rendering on, your viewer has so much going for it that I couldn't get either Exodus or Firestorm to do even close to as well!

      I still use Firestorm on occasion and I wish I didn't have to :( I use it for mesh uploading and the customiztion of the UI (only compared to the SL viewer, that is). And I'd use CHUI for mesh uploading instead of firestorm, if not for its chat being buggy.

      I do love the chat changes they have, though. What was your take on CHUI's chat?
      Also, I've not yet crashed with your latest two versions while wearing the LOGO Chloe Hybrid Mesh Avatar, had you fixed that and I just didn't notice until now? Or am I just lucky? All viewers had this issue because of LL and apparently the SL viewer has fixed it and firestorm still hasn't, but says they will.

      Delete
    3. I also have issues with Nirans (mostly my friend list that takes ages to load and random crashes) but not as much as in firestorm (no crashes at all but huge peak of lags that freezes my computer for long moments)

      Delete
  2. Sadly, Sourceforge is down tonight. Have to wait for the new update.

    Firestorm does have at least one reason to continue supporting old features: they want their viewer to work on OpenSim as well as Second Life, which means keeping support for such things as legacy profiles. As for the rest of it... well, they're different people and have different priorities.

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  3. wow Niran, you've been as much rude as I been previously against who was fighting against the new V2-V3 viewers. After the long and boring disputes I had against that people I finally given up and maybe today I hadn't been able to say the things you said but... honestly... in my heart... I totally agree with you.
    I've to say that I currently use Firestorm and you know why, we talked several times about this (I mean build tool features as: copy & paste prim parameters, copy & paste prim position & size, edit axis as root and so on) but just for this. Indeed I started to love more them since when they announced the end of developing for Phoenix. But it was useless because those people moved to Singularity... I think Firestorm could be great because honestly the team seems to have very good developers but they are probably, as you said, afraid to lose their users-base. This is the best way to aground the evolution. I don't like the Firestorm skins, I don't like the UI, I don't like their support to old V1 viewers and old-empty-minded people, people unable to find an option if it has been moved into another menu, people who life for inertia. I know so much people like that, EXPECIALLY HERE IN ITALY where people INCREDIBLY still voted for Berlusco** even if he totally destroyed our economy and our country. But life is this way: while few people tries to drag the world to the future, the multitude tries to keep it as it is, for mental laziness and incapacity to address and incorporate new things. History taught this several times: "world was flat" when Galileo told was a sphere, Darwin's evolution theories was blaspheme, women trying to rebel against the submission was witches to burn and so on...
    In little things like Second Life we can find the reasons of the larger things like politic and history. Humans are humans everywhere, also in a small virtual world. That's all. We have to live with this.
    Nevertheless we have to accept who things differently and respect, also not agreeing with their way to be.
    But at the end we have to continue our work, with foresight and tenacity. You have to do this. It is the duty of the forward-looking people.
    Don't give up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wouldnt care much if those "idiots" wouldnt delay and/or destroy/prevent the future in terms of advancing technology and/or evolution in terms of new features/UI, for people like me who actually want to see the future.

      Delete
  4. Be aware that one of those "idiots" is just Henry Beauchamps, the creathor of Sl cool viewer and the 1 that fixed most of All tpv problems?
    I used phoenix, as i use Imprudence as I use firestorm as I use Singularity!
    And you kmow why?
    Cause some "Stupid" that offers the best viewer of all, refuses to allow it go to open sim!
    And you dare to see the truth?
    That the stupids are all of us that trust LL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Henri is a very talented coder, his work on V1 is more like a "see LL thats where you failed", he is constantly kicking LL's asses and i support him on that, but still he's developing a V1 but im sure he's not doing that to mainly keep V1 alive.

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  5. Lol Niran, We 'handhold' as you put it because we care about the users of Second Life and our viewer. Are you really going to fault us for caring? Are you really going to fault us for communicating and interacting? For putting out efforts to do so? Considering this is the widest complaint and fault LL carries is lack of caring and communication I'm astounded that you are going to fault us for it.

    So to answer your question why we do it.. it's simple. We do everything we do, including viewer development because we actually care about people and if you ask me that means we do what we do for the 'right' reasons. Whats your reasons? What's your excuse?

    But thanks for the hate!

    Jessica Lyon
    Project Manager
    The Phoenix Firestorm Project

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, im not going to fault you because you're caring about the users. I do care about my users aswell as long as they dont do stupid. Im faulting you/your decisions because with what you do you let stupid people get the "might" over you and control where your Viewer is going next and with that you sort of "support" them beeing stupid idiots that do not want change for some stupid reasons.

      Delete
  6. My reply to this is far too long to put here> It's on my blog at http://secondden.blogspot.com/2013/02/dragging-people-kicking-and-screaming.html .

    ReplyDelete
  7. How does porting V1 features to V3 viewers keep users in the past? Please explain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Depending on what you port. I should probably explain that more specifically that im talking about features from V1 in terms of UI features and look/behavior/styles/skins and so on.

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    2. Why is porting any of those keeping users in the past? None of that slows down the technical evolution of the platform. It's just presenting the same functions in a different visual way. If you don't like the old interface, you don't use it, plain and simple. But the possibility that others *can* use it will not slow you down by any amount.

      Delete
  8. Perhaps a more in depth explanation can be found in my reply to this thread. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Viewer/Does-Firestorm-support-work-with-LL/m-p/1908191/thread-id/18327/highlight/false

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In other words:
      You're trying to make everyone happy which also includes "idiots", because idiots are also users and they are sort of LL's economy, which again just tells me that the world is kind of ruled by idiots which at the end are basically "users", because the users are the masses that decide where we have (just like politics) to go and those masses are those people that are the idiots ruining our life, because they have no fucking idea how much "might" they got and what they are actually doing.
      Not that i didnt know that already.

      Im still for getting rid of all idiots.

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    2. Be careful what you wish for :D

      Delete
  9. Build missing feature already showing:)
    So far no problems, besides quick time movies not playing and textures sometimes not rebaking fully, but that im already used to!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quicktime movies are overrated. We got Media-on-a-prim.

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    2. "Quicktime movies are overrated. We got Media-on-a-prim."

      YES! Apple features and proprietary codecs will die very soon :)

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    3. I hope Apple REALLY dies, Apple is crap, 60-70% of the price in their products is just the name, also this Iphone madness must end...its unbearable.

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    4. I believe you are aware that Quicktime is just a container, and the enclosed media might be just a simple mpeg4 video. Additionally, MOAP can transport quicktime videos as well. You are mixing up things here.

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    5. And still it way too overrated and overused especially on TV's... why dont people update their stuff...i really dont get it... its so easy to write a script that utilizes Media-on-a-Prim...and there are so less TV's that support Media-on-a-Prim...i mean, its so easy, when they can script such a quicktime using TV which i couldnt script, why dont they switch to a way easier method? or support it additionally...

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    6. Re: Quicktime - yes I am aware it is a container, but they used it to inflict ProRes on us - a codec which you can only get on their hardware by buying Final Cut ... and now they have made Final Cut into a hobby horse. The only talent they have is making people think that giving them money is "cool".

      Delete
    7. As far as SL goes, media-on-a-prim is by far the most flexible and useful way to get outside video in-world. No need to be landlord. Portable across sims. No limits on the video format, length, etc. Wearable. The quicktime video feature of SL is obsolete already.

      Delete
  10. actually Niran the power yu claim the 'idiots' have pale in comparison to the realization that you understand them. Once you realize that, the power u call it lies in the hands of those that can take the platform and grow .. create.. imagine.. and dream. Conversly acknowledging that you are here creating your viewer for the betterment of Sl society.. not just a segment or selected few creates a parodox that the only difference between them and us could be time involved in SL, a older computer or a slow internet connection, or all of the above.

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    Replies
    1. As side note: Idiots wanted the Deferred Renderer shiny to look like the legacy rendering one, effectively destroying all Content created for Deferred's shiny. They got what they wanted.

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    2. Deferred was (and still is) experimental code, while all other shiny content created to that day was expected to stay working. So it was the correct decision to revert back to the old shiny method. The new deferred shiny could be added with a new prim parameter, but it should not break old things.

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    3. Revert back? what. Deferred shiny was always like that, they didnt "revert it back" they downgraded and crippled graphics.

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    4. It was reverted to the regular shiny effect that was used before deferred was implemented. To keep old content looking as it was supposed to look, even in deferred mode. I doubt that as much content using "new deferred shiny" was created, so the "loss" of content should be minimal.

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    5. "I doubt that much attachments are created on the left upper arm, so the "breakage" of content should be minimal." - OPEN-162

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    6. *gives you bigger feet to stomp with* Maybe that helps.

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    7. I dont always stomp

      but when i do, i use Zi's special bigfoot-feet.™

      Delete
  11. For once i agree with you, Apple is nothing more then a full bag of shit and a myth!

    ReplyDelete
  12. btw, uasing this now and so far with great results so i advise it to all that use windows and have the needed hardware:
    http://wiki.catznip.com/index.php?title=Using_a_RAMDisk_for_disk_cache_%28Windows%29

    ReplyDelete