Thank You Firestorm

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, I guess it's too late, at least for full-scale viewer plug-ins. I still expect that some future virtual world will have compelling viewer-side scripting, or at the very least a more featured UI toolkit for scripts.

[ETA: Although, ya know... it would be possible for a TPV to architect itself to support third-party plugins. That's actually the kind of project I could get interested in -- but not for virtual reality, unless there's some sudden burst of interest following all this new hardware. Augmented reality seems to have a brighter future, and there is the Google Glass Mirror API. Hmmm.]

[Jandid Harcourt]

New update is really bad for me and forces me to use a different viewer. Whenever I put basic shaders on, I get a giant white light that covers my screen. Very annoying, had to use viewer 3 last night. Hoping this gets fixed asap.

[Perrie Juran]

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Jandid Harcourt wrote:

New update is really bad for me and forces me to use a different viewer. Whenever I put basic shaders on, I get a giant white light that covers my screen. Very annoying, had to use viewer 3 last night. Hoping this gets fixed asap.

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Did you file a bug report with Firestorm?

[Dillon Levenque]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

But I don't see Pussycat saying anything about fitted mesh specifically

. The Phoenix team says at the top of their announcement that the new release "has been a long time coming" and lists a few of the highlights that have been in Linden viewers for quite some time -- perhaps most notably, Monty's HTTP changes, and by adopting those the Firestorm viewer should again approach the Linden viewers' performance.

[ETA: Although, to be honest, I've been using Linden beta and RC viewers almost exclusively for a long time, just to try to catch bugs before they spread to TPVs and everywhere else, so my recollection of when features are introduced tends to skew toward earlier-than-release dates. Also, I don't mean to belittle the achievement of releasing a new, stable Firestorm viewer. There's a tremendous amount of source to merge when there are so many wide-ranging updates in the Linden code base. It seems the viewer has been getting a

lot

of fixes lately, with a lot more in progress right now, too.] 

---

 

I thought I remembered that she had—if not here, elsewhere—but I'm quite willing to concede I was wrong. Considering her debating points were taken up later by someone who knows far more about the subject than I, I'll not continue the debate myself.

I haven't tried the LL viewer recently (like in the last 6 months) but at that time it seemed usable. I don't have a problem with it or anything. I just don't feel like taking a lot of my very limited inworld time re-learning where things are on my viewer. I like Firestorm's inworld support group, also. Most of the time I have to shut it down, since IM's start popping up before my avatar steps out of the cloud, but when I need it, it's there. The few times I've had questions I've seen the answers in less than a minute.

Firestorm can keep up or fall behind; it's not a big problem for me. I went months before migrating to their mesh-supporting viewer for the simple reason that less than about 10% of the avatars/builds I saw had mesh objects. Once that fraction started to increase I took the trouble to move up.

Obviously, I'm not a POWER user. I remember hearing that term for the first time years ago, from a guy in our Field Service department and I managed not to laugh in his face, but it wasn't easy.

 

[Rya Nitely]

I'd like to reiterate my thank you to the Firestorm Team. The team are made up of volunteers - they deserve nothing but thanks.

I use Firestorm because I choose to. I assumed this thread was meant for people who use Firestorm and were happy to see the materials viewer finally come out of beta, along with all the other updates.

As a builder I choose to use Firestorm as it has some very useful features that make building easier. As a merchant, I try not to use features (such as alpha masking etc) in my work until they are fully supported by popular TPVs. So I stay behind with Firestorm and wait for them to catch up. When I talk to my customers and I ask what viewer they are using, they mostly say Firestorm.

[Hugsy Penguin]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Despite LL's warning that InvisiPrims were not supported and could get broken, everyone started using them. 

---

 I wish there was a way for them to bring back invisiprims regardless of your settings.  The ability to cancel the display of water was a nice feature.  The moles made an interesting "Hole in the Sea" which can still be found here:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Twogood/129/128/20

[Qie Niangao]

But invisiprims are really quite awful for removing water because they remove all other alpha textures behind their surface. This is also why they were such eyesores as shoe parts, back before the avatar got alpha masks. The thing is, we got that much-improved way to de-render avatar parts, but have no substitute for invisiprims when trying to de-render water.

Not yet.

But one can imagine "anti-water" that's way better than invisiprims. There have been requests and at least one jira for it, since long before invisiprims went away. I dunno what it would take to get it made. Maybe if we all show up at Nyx's office hour and exclaim that we don't want anything else -- no more fitted Mesh fluffery, no more futzing-about with outfits, no more next-avatar nonsense, nothing -- until we get our anti-water. Maybe then they'd listen, or maybe not.

I get the impression that some adult supervision is needed at Nyx's office hour to remind them that there's more to SL than avatars. Last I checked, the attendance has pretty much shifted to avatar-builders only, which happened naturally because Mesh was originally such a fustercluck for avatars. But at this point it would be better to declare that "mission accomplished" and get on with other, non-avatar stuff for a few years.

(Oh, and the "power user" discussion is just too silly. Power users do not run somebody else's TPV. Duh.)

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Well i am a firestorm user from the very first times, as i ve been a phoenix users from the first hour after Jessica sent  out the notecard about its creation.

I am really HAPPY and satisfied with it.

From day one till now.

i dont feel i am behind (anyway its not a race, i dont mind to be behind or not, if others are fully happy with other viewers i'm glad for them) on the contrary.

Ok we had to wait a bit for materials and fitted meshes. And what ? We all know that new improvements done by the lab are always a lame at first, so im not sad to have them after a few weeks when they are a bit better.

but ok we got those 2 ones after LL viewer, and how many other features do we have with firestorm than LL viewer's users doesnt have ? Tons ! And not to mention the awesome support group 24/24 and 7/7. Does the LL viewer have same kind of group ?

So really, ive read things here in that thread that made me laugh hard. 

Thank you a lot to firestorm team for the new release. I had already a great fps since i purchased my new comp, but this new release multiplied my fps by 2. Wooooot ! (and really, i do care fps more than fitted mesh bec i can avoid fitted mesh, but i need a good fps all the time when im in sl, especially when i run with ultra graphics for my photos). 

Everthing works perfect for me. i know its not same for everyone, but for me, it works awesome !

 

thank you ! kudos to the dev team and the support team.

[Perrie Juran]

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Hugsy Penguin wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

Despite LL's warning that InvisiPrims were not supported and could get broken, everyone started using them. 

---

 I wish there was a way for them to bring back invisiprims regardless of your settings.  The ability to cancel the display of water was a nice feature.  The moles made an interesting "Hole in the Sea" which can still be found here: 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Twogood/129/128/20

---

The need to "cancel" water is a legitimate one.  But what is needed as Qui pointed out is a legitimate way of doing it.  With the JIRA's open again to public view maybe it's time to make that feature request again.  I think you'd find a lot of support among the Users for it.

Maybe I'm being over optimistic but I have a feeling we are starting to get listened to.

[Coby Foden]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

But at this point it would be better to declare that "mission accomplished" and get on with other, non-avatar stuff for a few years.

---

But, but... we do need new avatar mesh. Then we could do away with all those avatar mesh add-ons of which only intention and purpose is to hide the terrible avatar mesh what we have now.

I'm sure that if we had new well made nice avatar mesh it would be less laggier than all those body mesh add-ons what people wear now. The body parts add-on craze has already gone too crazy.

:smileyfrustrated:

[Perrie Juran]

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Coby Foden wrote:

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

 

But at this point it would be better to declare that "mission accomplished" and get on with other, non-avatar stuff for a few years.

---

But, but... we

do need

new avatar mesh. Then we could do away with all those avatar mesh add-ons of which only intention and purpose is to hide the terrible avatar mesh what we have now.

I'm sure that if we had new well made nice avatar mesh it would be less laggier than all those body mesh add-ons what people wear now. The body parts add-on craze has already gone too crazy.

:smileyfrustrated:

---

I'll agree with this.

I've asked a few people privately about a certain anatomical enhancement and 'lag.'

I was seeing Avatars with render weights toping 500,000.

(Since that time there was an update to said enhancement and the number has gone down but I am still seeing some very high numbers on occasion).

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, maybe, but I don't think any amount of New Avatar Wonderfulness will discourage people from replacing it wholly with lagmonster AVs bigger (or smaller), with more (or fewer) tails, and somehow always an order of magnitude more geometry than whatever is offered. It's just the way of avatar-conscious SL users, so I don't see much benefit of introducing another avatar mesh that will get even less use than the junky one we've got now.

If they really feel compelled to make a more extensible skeleton, okay, maybe one developer part-time on that, as long as it won't break any existing content (animations, especially).

Or if they want to support arbitrary rigging deformation of unattached Mesh, I can see some value in that.

But I'd much rather have anti-water surfaces. Followed by Linden-water surfaces.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

Yeah, maybe, but I don't think any amount of New Avatar Wonderfulness will discourage people from replacing it wholly with lagmonster AVs bigger (or smaller), with more (or fewer) tails, and somehow always an order of magnitude more geometry than whatever is offered. It's just the way of avatar-conscious SL users, so I don't see much benefit of introducing another avatar mesh that will get even less use than the junky one we've got now.

If they really feel compelled to make a more extensible skeleton, okay, maybe one developer part-time on that, as long as it won't break any existing content (animations, especially).

Or if they want to support arbitrary rigging deformation of

unattached

Mesh, I can see some value in that.

But I'd much rather have anti-water surfaces. Followed by Linden-water surfaces.

---

You've got a point there and there will always be those who have to have what they percieve as the latest and greatest since sliced white bread.

Personally speaking,  I'm not looking for a whole new (second) Avatar mesh.  Just some enhancements to smooth out some of the sharper angles that have been the biggest trouble spots on the existing mesh.

 

[Christin73]

Sense doing a clean install of the new verssion of firestorm I have had issues. At first it would freeze up clearing cach on start up. Now when I log on, I am a cloud. I have done clean instals 3 times now. So I think they still have bugs to work out.

[Coby Foden]

Sinse doing clean install - uninstall and then manually wiping every single reference to Firestorm; including the settings and cache - I have had no problems whatsoever. Everything works beautifully in Firestorm 4.6.1 (64 bit) for me.

 

[TristanMercer]

Christin...

 

You cleared cache, doing clean installs.......which means you have no cache of textures, objects. Plus your inventory needs to load itself all over again.

Most times you will not render until your inventory is fully loaded. Head to a quiet region, let your inventory load and see if you render.

[Vania Chaplin]

Invisiprims are still used in some boats, but this is broken if Advanced shaders are used :smileysad:

For sure, I will support a JIRA on this, and I think that the whole slsailing comunity will too.

(for this pick I displaced a bit the invisiprim to show the effect)

[Perrie Juran]

---

Vania Chaplin wrote:

Invisiprims are still used in some boats, but this is broken if Advanced shaders are used :smileysad:

 

For sure, I will support a JIRA on this, and I think that the whole slsailing comunity will too.

 

(for this pick I displaced a bit the invisiprim to show the effect)

---

Is that a Trudeau?  I dont normally run with advanced shaders on so I never noticed an Invisprim in my T-12.  I'll have to check.

[Vania Chaplin]

Yes, Trudeau Patchogue II, one of my favourites boats. I don't know if T-12 have the invisiprim, but Francois Jacques, don't.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

---

Hugsy Penguin wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

Despite LL's warning that InvisiPrims were not supported and could get broken, everyone started using them. 

---

 I wish there was a way for them to bring back invisiprims regardless of your settings.  The ability to cancel the display of water was a nice feature.  The moles made an interesting "Hole in the Sea" which can still be found here: 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Twogood/129/128/20

---

The need to "cancel" water is a legitimate one.  But what is needed as Qui pointed out is a legitimate way of doing it.  With the JIRA's open again to public view maybe it's time to make that feature request again.  I think you'd find a lot of support among the Users for it.

Maybe I'm being over optimistic but I have a feeling we are starting to get listened to.

---

I recently ran across this blog post, which offers a rather cool idea on how this could possibly be accomplished... link.  Look at the section about Weather, specifically "Step Two".

In a nutshell, it describes a "User-defined Zone" feature, where a user can map out a space which will then act in one of a number of different ways, including defining the inside and outside of a house (making it possible for rain to fall on a house without falling inside of a house) and a Linden Water zone (making it possible to define a space in a skybox which acts as Linden water and, I would have to assume, a space within Linden water which does not).  Whether or not this would be able to obscure the visual aspect as well (such as making it look as if there's a hole in the Linden ocean), I have no idea, but I thought it was quite an interesting approach.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

I get that they have the worst, most whiney user base. The worst of the worst in terms of inability to understand the technology one uses - those people are a subset of FS users. One only has to look at the logs of their support hours to see that. They may not be FS's typical users.

---

You have to be kidding me.  You have absolutely no basis to substantiate this "worst, most whiney (sic) user base" claim.  What are these support hours of which you speak?  And do you honestly think that, should LL have the same such support logs, they wouldn't also be rife with untechnologically inclined, sometimes rather whiny users?

Plus, your use of the term "special people" in describing their user base, reeks of insolency.  Don't you have anything better to do than go out of your way in order to issue despicably derogatory comments about wide swaths of your fellow SL residents?

...Dres

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

I recently ran across this blog post, which offers a rather cool idea on how this could possibly be accomplished...

link

.  Look at the section about Weather, specifically "Step Two".

...Dres

---

I thought there were, to my untutored eye, some excellent ideas in that blog post -- so much so that I posted a link to it on my feed.

It's a shame that Burns allows himself to come off as such a smug, condescending, pompous, self-satisfied, self-promoting obnoxious little twerp. I'd happily adopt his ideas, but I'd rather slash my wrists with a plastic knife than actually be in a room with him, yet alone work with him.

ETA: Because I forgot "condescending" and "obnoxious."

ETA again: I guess there's no room for "arrogant" in that list, is there? :-/

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

I recently ran across this blog post, which offers a rather cool idea on how this could possibly be accomplished...

link

.  Look at the section about Weather, specifically "Step Two".

...Dres

---

I thought there were, to my untutored eye, some excellent ideas in that blog post -- so much so that I posted a link to it on my feed.

It's a shame that Burns allows himself to come off as such a smug, pompous, self-satisfied, self-promoting little twerp. I'd happily adopt his ideas, but I'd rather slash my wrists with a plastic knife than actually be in a room with him, yet alone work with him.

---

As a matter of fact, it was your feed post that led me to that blog post (I vaguely remember thanking you for posting it).  As far as his attitude, you're pretty spot on, which is why I tried to direct people to that specific section of his post.

...Dres

[LaskyaClaren]

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

I recently ran across this blog post, which offers a rather cool idea on how this could possibly be accomplished...

link

.  Look at the section about Weather, specifically "Step Two".

...Dres

---

I thought there were, to my untutored eye, some excellent ideas in that blog post -- so much so that I posted a link to it on my feed.

It's a shame that Burns allows himself to come off as such a smug, pompous, self-satisfied, self-promoting little twerp. I'd happily adopt his ideas, but I'd rather slash my wrists with a plastic knife than actually be in a room with him, yet alone work with him.

---

As a matter of fact, it was your feed post that led me to that blog post (I vaguely remember thanking you for posting it).  As far as his attitude, you're pretty spot on, which is why I tried to direct people to that specific section of his post.

...Dres

---

Oh. 

That's right, you did. I remember now.

However, I'd have hated to miss an opportunity to excoriate him again as an insufferably supercilious piece of . . .

Well, yeah. You get the idea. :-)

[Perrie Juran]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

---

Hugsy Penguin wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

Despite LL's warning that InvisiPrims were not supported and could get broken, everyone started using them. 

---

 I wish there was a way for them to bring back invisiprims regardless of your settings.  The ability to cancel the display of water was a nice feature.  The moles made an interesting "Hole in the Sea" which can still be found here: 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Twogood/129/128/20

---

The need to "cancel" water is a legitimate one.  But what is needed as Qui pointed out is a legitimate way of doing it.  With the JIRA's open again to public view maybe it's time to make that feature request again.  I think you'd find a lot of support among the Users for it.

Maybe I'm being over optimistic but I have a feeling we are starting to get listened to.

---

I recently ran across this blog post, which offers a rather cool idea on how this could possibly be accomplished...

link

.  Look at the section about Weather, specifically "Step Two".

In a nutshell, it describes a "User-defined Zone" feature, where a user can map out a space which will then act in one of a number of different ways, including defining the inside and outside of a house (making it possible for rain to fall on a house without falling inside of a house) and a Linden Water zone (making it possible to define a space in a skybox which acts as Linden water and, I would have to assume, a space within Linden water which does not).  Whether or not this would be able to obscure the visual aspect as well (such as making it look as if there's a hole in the Linden ocean), I have no idea, but I thought it was quite an interesting approach.

...Dres

---

That is very interesting.  And I'm certain that something would be doable. 

So many things come down to either a) LL's idea as to what is important, or b) will server and/or viewer load make it unrealistic to do. 

We know it's important.  It's that second part that can be very hard for us to know.