Firestorm or SL viewer?

[Phil Deakins]

LOL. If LL didn't produce a viewer, there would be no viewers at all. There are no independant viewers. The third party viewers are all LL viewers with modifications, that's all.

I'm sure you knew that. I only mentioned it in case you or anyone else didn't know.

[AnitaDahab]

I use the SL viewer to be more accustomed. I do not know the firestorm, but I've heard.

[Venus Petrov]

If you decide to try Firestorm (and I encourage you to do so), make sure you join the Firestorm Support Group inworld. There are several groups for different languages so pick English or what suits you.  It's a very helpful, active group and can often sort out a problem or point you to a helpful website.  Good luck!

[Perrie Juran]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

LOL. If LL didn't produce a viewer, there would be no viewers at all. There are no independant viewers. The third party viewers are all LL viewers with modifications, that's all.

I'm sure you knew that. I only mentioned it in case you or anyone else didn't know.

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I think you missed Deltango's humor there, which humor I kind of agree with.

But here's the skivvy as I see it.  I can't give you a direct quote to back this up, it's an impression I have gleaned from various statements, but LL has abdicated GUI design to the TPV's.  They are only interested in the Viewer's engine, leaving it to the TPV's to build the car around it.  The TPV's have done an admirable job of this bringing many often time requested features to life.

[Phil Deakins]

If LL doesn't stray much from the V3, I don't think there's any reason to abdicate the design, and, if abdication is their attitude, I don't think they've done it yet. V4 is the same as V3, and surely LL produced the V3 GUI all those years ago. I know that LL has implemented things that first appeared in TPVs. That's been happening for many years - since jiggly boobs came along. (There aren't many of those around these days ).

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

since jiggly boobs came along. (There aren't many of those around these days

).

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There's at least one jiggly boob still around...

[Bobbie Faulds]

Y'all do know that you have the option of setting the Firestorm viewer to look like the current SL viewer, right? Like others, I do keep the official viewer on my puter as well as FS so I can check when I have a problem and see if it's viewer or SL related so I know what I need to troubleshoot.

If you have an older puter try the CtrlAlt viewer. It's based on the FS coding but doesn't have some of the bells and whistles...think of it as a FS light.

I've played with just about every viewer out there since I admin in an RP sim and help players when they are having problems. Some are pretty much the SL viewer. I have a problem in the SL viewer keeping my Windlight settings. I always have to reset them when I log in. FS has all the Windlight settings at your fingertips. 

FS team has shown itself to be open and above board so Prok, chill with dragging out what is now ancient history. We all agree what was done was just wrong. So was the V2 viewer LL tried..Nothing like having someone code a viewer that's never set foot in SL other than to maybe look around and say how nice. A lot of what is in the LL viewer came from the Phoenix/Firestorm team, including the multiple attachments to the same place we all depend on now.

[Whirly Fizzle]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

I have a problem in the SL viewer keeping my Windlight settings. I always have to reset them when I log in. FS has all the Windlight settings at your fingertips. 

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That's actually expected behaviour on the LL viewer - they changed the behaviour a while ago to deliberately do that, believe it or not.

You can easily fix it though, at least they added a new debug setting so you can go back to the old behaviour.

Activate the Advanced menu in the top menu bar with CTRL+ALT+D.

Advanced -> Show Debug Settings -> EnvironmentPersistAcrossLogin -> Set to TRUE.

Profit.

Ref JIRA issue: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-8739

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Y'all do know that you have the option of setting the Firestorm viewer to look like the current SL viewer, right?

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Actually I did not.  I suspected there was a way but I didn't try all the skins to figure it out. I remember seeing a place to toggle the wheel menu off.  Can you tell me how to set FS to look like the Linden viewer?

[Bobbie Faulds]

Opening page, bottom right, select mode.Pull down menu

[ChinRey]

I'm really disappointed with you all. I've heard about the Viewers Wars of the old times and thought I'd finally would get the chance to watch one. But this is tame. Where are all the true fanatics? Where are all the random insults? Where are the griefers sent out to harrass people usign the wrong viewer???

Anyway, the only proper viewer is UKanDo. It has everything the regular viewer has plus the most essential extras from the popular TPVs, the developer(s) has made a bona fide (although rather feeble) attempt to make a decent interface and it's even trying to fix the eternal camera position bug! Yes,it's also been very prone to texture thrashing recenly but that's a minor iss... noo, wait, that's actually a rather major problem. Maybe not UKanDo right now then.

[Whirly Fizzle]

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ChinRey wrote:

 Where are all the true fanatics?

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[Kelli May]

UKanDo just killed my interest by popping up a full-page video ad when I clicked on their Features page. 

[KarenMichelle Lane]

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Kelli May wrote:

UKanDo just killed my interest by popping up a full-page video ad when I clicked on their Features page. 

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Wow - an old time fake Flash Install Exploit...

I had to turn off ABP [Ad Block Plus] to get this but dodgy none the less.

Reported to LL & Google Search Team.

[Kelli May]

Interesting. My adblocker didn't trap it, although it reported catching up to 9 ads on different viewings of the page. I also got a totally different ad to you - a video ad for some kind of dodgy business venture which had the old 'sure you want to leave this page' hack. So far, my blocker has caught everything else on this page.

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Opening page, bottom right, select mode.Pull down menu

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Maybe I missed it.  I can make it look like the old viewers but not V4

I'll look again. Thanks

[Venus Petrov]

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ChinRey wrote:

I'm really disappointed with you all. I've heard about the Viewers Wars of the old times and thought I'd finally would get the chance to watch one. But this is tame.

Where are all the true fanatics? Where are all the random insults? Where are the griefers sent out to harrass people usign the wrong viewer???

...

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There is no need to insult anyone over their choice of viewer. To each his/her own.  There are so many choices now that something will fit someone's need.  I'm sure there are plenty of other topics to get one's knickers in a twist.

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

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ChinRey wrote:

I'm really disappointed with you all. I've heard about the Viewers Wars of the old times and thought I'd finally would get the chance to watch one. But this is tame.

Where are all the true fanatics? Where are all the random insults? Where are the griefers sent out to harrass people usign the wrong viewer???

...

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There is no need to insult anyone over their choice of viewer. To each his/her own.  There are so many choices now that something will fit someone's need.  I'm sure there are plenty of other topics to get one's knickers in a twist.

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Like all those wierdos who think Taco Bell is Mexican food.  yuck!  They probably put sour cream in guacamole, too.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Personally I really like the official view most. For me it has the most intuitive UI. It is also the fastest and most current - always on the edge of the latest technology for SL.

That said, for the past year it has been horrible on my Macs. Crashing anytime I enter a location with more than a few avatars around. I've tried all the cutting edge 'laggy people detection and auto-derender' systems in the various beta viewers, and they help... but not enough (when I use the 'Quick Graphics' viewer I can get to maybe 15 people around me instead of just 10)...

My Macs have different graphics cards, and are very different systems:

MacBook:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB

iMac:
iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 675M 512 MB

So its not just the graphics cards. But if I recall right the instability carries through to Bootcamp / Windows 10 as well.

 

So I'm now on Firestorm, because its has the right tuning for Mac stability... I don't like its UI at all, and I've tweaked every preference I can to get it to be more like the official viewer, and there are some new features for SL that I really miss...

... But not crashing is a little more important for me right now.

I'm not aware of the Sailor's buddy HUD option and RLV stuff - but since I go sailing a lot it looks like I need to become aware of these. WHere can I find out about them?

 

I also ONLY wear a mesh body. Either Belleza Freya or Solarian. This aspect is about the same on both viewers... I "think" I tested whether or not my mesh body was why the official viewer was crashing, and that it was not why... "think" that is... I will have to re-test that to be sure...

 

 

[Aethelwine]

The Utimate Sailor buddy is used by the Rainbow Sailing Yacht club for their cruises, LCC also send out a notecard to use with their cruises along with the DS Cruiser hud and PPS map system.

You can read the marketplace descriptions for full functionality, the main advantage for me is being able to do the RSYC cruises. But especially when racing having the waypoints automatically update without messing about with the map is useful. Also having the speed and wind information on display is good for those boats that like to hide that information away. If you are racing it synchs with the start line timer too, to help get a good start.

Demo of the pro version:

https://betasearch-marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Ultimate-Sailor-Buddy-Pro-13-Demo/4352216

And a free basic version:

https://betasearch-marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Ultimate-Sailor-Buddy-Basic-13/4352236

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Opening page, bottom right, select mode.Pull down menu

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Firestorm

Phoenix

Viewer 3

Hybrid

Latency

Text

That's the only options I see.  I tried the V3 version but even it uses the old, old style windows and the new v4 controls are dissimilar enough to bug me.  Especially the top and favorites bars.  Oh well., it was worth a shot.

[AnimalChi]

Firestorm viewer has made my Second Life more convient and more enjoyable than that stripped down/ almost useless original viewer ever could. There's just so many more options on Firestorm viewer that make life easier. And I mean this in every situation possible. Building/ exploring/ searching for in-world objects/ privacy options/ transportation/teleportation/ built in move locks/ built in AOs,  and so on.

But it may take more time to learn than the original viewer.

[LuEllen Weymann]

 

Here is a picture of me in the Second LIfe Viewer:



Here's what I look like in FIrestorm Viewer:



Want to guess why I don't use Second Life Viewer?

 

[Phil Deakins]

I'm surprised that you use either of those viewers. The LL viewer pic affects your eyes and the Firestorm viewer squashes your face. The LL viewer is much better for your face, because the eyes can be fixed. I know this because I use the LL viewer and I never see black eyes like that.

My guess is that you use add-ons for or around your eyes, and you chose a pair that look good in Firestorm, but the maker didn't check what they looked like in other viewers. Or perhaps you have different graphic setting for the two viewers. But whatever the case is, you definitely look better in the LL viewer - unless you want to look squashed, of course.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

LOL

It's obvious the picture itself is 'squashed' in the second pic, not her face.  I suspect that one was taken as a 1:1 ratio whereas the other was probably a 4:3 squashed to a 1:1.  You can tell by the earrings.  They are also squashed looking.

I've never known or heard of that type of problem being the eyelash creators fault.  It is how the viewers are rezzing them and obviously the SL viewer is having an issue with it, at least for her.