New FS Viewer...6.4.13...Looks Like BLEEEEEEEP!

[Rowan Amore]

13 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I'm not a fan of Firestorm but I've never seen it accused of being a copybot viewer. Where I think you may be making a mistake is that Firestorm has been accused many times of having skullduggery in its history, including by me, and you've assumed that the accusations were about copybotting. They weren't.

I remember when this happened.  I never used the Emerald version.  

[Phil Deakins]

27 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

I think from memory they didn't release the code technically at first.
In 2006 Libsecondlife reverse engineered it and Copybot was born as an evolution after that.

That's correct. Copybotting was an unintended misuse of LibSL, not of the open source viewer. That came later.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Phil Deakins

[FairreLilette]

29 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I guess I missed the thread that called firestorm a copybot viewer.  Anyone care to point me to it?

Oh, it's buried here somewhere within thousands of threads.  But, it's occurred more than once with no one every denying it and I always wondered why.  Some accusations were not by one time forum posters either.  I also assumed the possibility that others just didn't want to discuss it as it's not true or an old rumor not worth discussing.    However, I did kind of expect others to refute it but no one did.   I've been with FS off and on for about ten years so I did not assume it's truth but still wondered why it's been said and no one ever denied it.

@Phil Deakins, FS has been referred to in some not so good lights but I never knew what it was all about and it never stopped me from being a FS user all these years.  There are just too many of us on FS that it has it long, good-standing history with thousands upon thousands of users.

Edited April 12, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Phil Deakins]

I think it's safe to say that FS has not been accused many times as a copybot viewer. I also think it's safe to say that you have made a mistake through the years about that. It has been accused many times for something else, but not copybotting. You are mistaken.

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

I am HOPING that FS decides and implements a CHOICE between EEP and Windlight.  Parity has already gone out that open window.   

I was hoping that too, Chic.  

I prefer the FS windlight with the slider in the Quick Preferences.  I could get much better lighting using the slider that was available in QP than I can with clicking around a sun which doesn't seem to make a pretty difference for me to like it for a photograph.  It seems to just change the shadow location.

However, has FS ever wanted two different viewers?  It's a lot of ask, especially when it's volunteer.  

[Jenna Huntsman]

Just now, FairreLilette said:

I was hoping that too, Chic.  

I prefer the FS windlight with the slider in the Quick Preferences.  I could get much better lighting using the slider that was available in QP than I can with clicking around a sun which doesn't seem to make a pretty difference for me to like it for a photograph.  It seems to just change the shadow location.

However, has FS ever wanted two different viewers?  It's a lot of ask, especially when it's volunteer.  

I'll chime in here and say that it is definitely possible to do if the Firestorm devs wanted to / had a reason to.

CoolVL viewer has such an option to change between EEP and Windlight on-the-fly in it's graphics settings, without needing a relog.

However, as time goes on it's less and less likely that such a feature would be implemented. Remember when Windlight was introduced and people thought it was the devil back then, and now people swear by it?

[FairreLilette]

16 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I think it's safe to say that FS has not been accused many times as a copybot viewer. I also think it's safe to say that you have made a mistake through the years about that. It has been accused many times for something else, but not copybotting. You are mistaken.

All I can think of is the posters may have been mistaken hearing rumors of skullduggery and thinking it meant copy-botting.  However, I only wanted to know what it was about but it never stopped me from using FS.  I thought it was hyperbole, but it was curious how it was never refuted.  Can I assume most others just don't want to take the time as it's nonsense?  I did kind of assume that. 

[Phil Deakins]

@FairreLilette I'm sorry, but it is you who is mistaken. FS has not been accused many times of being copybot viewer - not in this forum, anyway.

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

All I can think of is the posters may have been mistaken hearing rumors of skullduggery and thinking it meant copy-botting.  However, I only wanted to know what it was about but it never stopped me from using FS.  I thought it was hyperbole, but it was curious how it was never refuted.  Can I assume most others just don't want to take the time as it's nonsense?  I did kind of assume that. 

It was the Emerald viewer, the precursor to Firestorm.  It was never about copybotting but a privacy concern if I remember correctly.   LL blocked that viewer when it was discovered.  Phoenix/Firestorm literally rose from the ashes of Emerald.

[Coffee Pancake]

Content creators are not going to start making multiple versions of their items targeting specific eras of SL rendering. For better or worse, EEP is the new normal.

Adjust what can be, replace what can't. (and this time, try sticking to stuff that's mod!)

If we ever get a new render pipeline based on Vulkan, everything will look different all over again.

[panterapolnocy]

51 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

However, I did kind of expect others to refute it but no one did. 

All right then. Firestorm itself never was, is not and never will be a copybot viewer. Same as Catznip or any other viewer listed in the Third Party Viewer Directory that is maintained by Linden Lab. The whole Emerald privacy-based thing and its downfall caused people from said Emerald team to leave - people that didn't agree with "the Emerald ways" - and the Phoenix viewer was born, which later turned into Firestorm - a program and team fully transparent, built on trust and transparency, both with the users and the Lab. If you still have doubts about a viewer - any viewer - then please take a look at this article and decide for yourself. But don't call any project a fraud just because you don't know anything about it or "heard rumours" - such comments are not too pleasant to read for the people that maintain code in good faith.

As for copybot viewers - yes,  there are some out there, maintained by people who do not care about community standards and that are based on popular viewers, but they cannot be assigned to the original creators of said viewers for rather obvious reasons - these are completely different teams. I hope that this clears this topic.

About your original issue; I'm personally glad it was fixed. Firestorm is going to obviously incorporate Lab's fixes sooner or later, so in time you should see everything as it should be on Firestorm as well. Right now there are no plans for separate EEP and Windlight viewers, as far as I know. 6.3.9 is the last one that is Windlight capable and should be blocked after the next EEP release.

Edited April 12, 2021 by panterapolnocy

[Chic Aeon]

13 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Remember when Windlight was introduced and people thought it was the devil back then, and now people swear by it?

I ALWAYS loved Windlight (note forum tag :D). 

 

 

And I didn't say anything about TWO viewers == although thinking about it I suspect that the OS viewer doesn't have EEP as there is no way Opensim is using that (maybe I am wrong there --- not willing to try putting both viewers on as last time it was very bad :D).   

 

The CHOICE long ago when the viewer style changed ---- was at LOGIN, not a separate viewer.  I have no idea how Cool is handling that, but I do know I will be sticking with FS as it has too many things I use that the other viewers do not :D.  

We'll see what happens when it happens.  There were always some good ideas in EEP -- it just hasn't lived up to the original hype.  So far anyway.  

Edited April 12, 2021 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[FairreLilette]

20 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

I'll chime in here and say that it is definitely possible to do if the Firestorm devs wanted to / had a reason to.

CoolVL viewer has such an option to change between EEP and Windlight on-the-fly in it's graphics settings, without needing a relog.

However, as time goes on it's less and less likely that such a feature would be implemented. Remember when Windlight was introduced and people thought it was the devil back then, and now people swear by it?

About a year ago, there was a thread about which light people used most and it seemed at least 50% said MIDDAY.  Now, I use MIDDAY for building but I use Annan Adored Optimal Skin for my skin but I never liked Nam's Optimal Skin and Prim as others do as it's too bright in my monitor and my monitor's brightness is set to fairly low.  But, as far as windlights that's personal preference.  I'm bringing it up because many people don't even know how to turn on Annan Adored or Nam's Optimal for a portrait photo, so why did LL think people, in general, would like EEP?  EEP, to me, seems for a particular connoisseur not the average SL population.  But, this is just my opinion of it.  I thought the last viewer, the BOM viewer, was just gorgeous and fine with my AMD.  I also know how to bump the pixels way up in my camera which the average SL does not and that makes a world of difference in one's photographs.  

People want to meet (visit) their significant other on SL or meet a SL other here.  There is only a certain few who want to do amazing photographs and would even use EEP.

But, also when windlight first came out, were there click on environment settings like there are now?  Or, did that have to all be done with just changing incremental values until a good result was achieved?  

Edited April 12, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Rowan Amore]

Regardless of which viewer you use, whether you use one with EEP or one without, which light setting you build with, midday or some other, your builds will look significantly different to others if you build with Advanced lighting OFF.  Everyone with advanced lighting ON will not see what you see even on the same viewer as you and using the same lighting.

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

7 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

About a year ago, there was a thread about which light people used most and it seemed at least 50% said MIDDAY.  Now, I use MIDDAY for building but I use Annan Adored Optimal Skin for my skin but I never liked Nam's Optimal Skin and Prim as others do as it's too bright in my monitor and my monitor's brightness is set to fairly low.  But, as far as windlights that's personal preference.  I'm bringing it up because many people don't even know how to turn on Annan Adored or Nam's Optimal for a portrait photo, so why did LL think people, in general, would like EEP?  EEP, to me, seems for a particular connoisseur not the average SL population.  But, this is just my opinion of it.  I thought the last viewer, the BOM viewer, was just gorgeous and fine with my AMD.  I also know how to bump the pixels way up in my camera which the average SL does not and that makes a world of difference in one's photographs.  

People want to meet their significant other on SL or meet a SL other here.  There is only a certain few who want to do amazing photographs and would even use EEP.

But, also when windlight first came out, were there click on environment settings like there are now?  Or, did that have to all be done with just changing incremental values until a good result was achieved?  

You are making an awful lot of assumptions here.. 

Basing your opinions of the grid at large over the small sample of people in the forums is silly. 

I would love a link to the thread where 50% of people use Midday for everything.. Midday is the worst choice for building. 

The last viewer was NOT the BOM viewer. That was 2-3 viewers ago. This is why people keep up with the new viewers. All this was hashed out in the forums and FS group months ago. You are now entering the EEP era 4 months behind most other users.  

People also just want to build, hang out, dance, listen to music, or hundreds of other things besides hooking up or finding their soulmate. 

 

[Chic Aeon]

From the FS download page. Might be worth a try for some folks.  

[Jenna Huntsman]

14 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If we ever get a new render pipeline based on Vulkan, everything will look different all over again.

I really hope we do.

I'm kinda hoping that after the teething problems with Uplift have been sorted (I'm looking at you, group chats and map tiles) that LL put in a couple months worth of work optimizing the existing viewer code (Multithreading PLEASE), then get to work on a new Vulkan-based viewer (Optimizing the existing one should come first, if for nothing else to buy time to get a new viewer ready instead of having to rush it)

8 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

About a year ago, there was a thread about which light people used most and it seemed at least 50% said MIDDAY.  Now, I use MIDDAY for building but I use Annan Adored Optimal Skin for my skin but I never liked Nam's Optimal Skin and Prim as others do as it's too bright in my monitor and my monitor's brightness is set to fairly low.  But, as far as windlights that's personal preference.  I'm bringing it up because many people don't even know how to turn on Annan Adored or Nam's Optimal for a portrait photo, so why did LL think people, in general, would like EEP?  EEP, to me, seems for a particular connoisseur not the average SL population.  But, this is just my opinion of it.  I thought the last viewer, the BOM viewer, was just gorgeous and fine with my AMD.  I also know how to bump the pixels way up in my camera which the average SL does not and that makes a world of difference in one's photographs.  

People want to meet (visit) their significant other on SL or meet a SL other here.  There is only a certain few who want to do amazing photographs and would even use EEP.

But, also when windlight first came out, were there click on environment settings like there are now?  Or, did that have to all be done with just changing incremental values until a good result was achieved?  

I, myself, love EEP. I work professionally in the film industry, and it's a great step forward from WL in terms of what kind of lighting SL can render (WL was actually really limited in what it could do). I think people don't like EEP because it's definitely not as simple as WL is, and that seam issues on their avatars are back again with (seemingly) no fix. (Seam issues are actually down to meshes not aligning perfectly, material maps not blended correctly, etc - content made to be compatible will have no issues under any light (Which is why the SLNeck standard is important, as this addresses all of these issues)).

EEP also brings some important LSL commands which means that content creators can have a lot more power over the kinds of environments that are used on their parcels / regions, and can change on-the-fly as needed. WL had no such functionality. EEP is a step in modernizing SL, which is needed to keep SL relevant. I agree it may be a bit odd on timing given that the viewer itself has well-known performance issues.

Performance on EEP vs WL is about 3-4 FPS on my system. I'm not too bothered by it. It'll get better as time goes on and the code is optimized, but that's where it (currently) is on my system. YMMV on that one though.

AMD GPUs and SL aren't really a good combo under Windows. I know, I have an AMD system. If you run Linux, then this no longer applies, but some of the software that I have to use as part of my job does not run under Linux, so I can't (practically) change right now. I don't think that's going to change, there's not really anything that uses OpenGL in the same way that SL does anymore, as that's all moved over to Vulkan or DX12.

[FairreLilette]

25 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I would love a link to the thread where 50% of people use Midday for everything.. Midday

I don't remember the title...I believe I know the person's user name who started the thread and I could message the person and ask.  The title was something like 'which lighting do you mostly use'.  

 

25 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

The last viewer was NOT the BOM viewer

I meant the viewer before the two EEP viewers.  

This is getting ridiculous with you asking questions or debating everything little thing I say.  I'm done with you.  DONE period.   I have a life to lead.

Edited April 12, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Rowan Amore]

https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_older_downloads

Version 58205 is still available and non eep.

They will be blocking 58052.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[FairreLilette]

17 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

AMD GPUs and SL aren't really a good combo under Windows. I know, I have an AMD system. 

Well, there is a lot of non-optimized content here too.  However, this computer was built as a gift from a rl friend to me but I said I don't need a mega graphics card as SL is not a video game, so my friend went to the computer store where he was going to have someone build it and the computer builder looked up the specs here and built it, saying he knew about SL but I don't think he really did or maybe he knew about pre-mesh avatar SL.   However, I did not have a problem until now with the EEP viewers both the one I downloaded in December and this one just very recently.  

However, much of the lag from the non-optimized content resolved for me with the cloud and it was great.   Some people have hated the cloud though.  Me, I had a good experience with it.

EEP, I viewed it a bit on the LL viewer which is a bit better right now visually, but the chat and another issue is not good for me, but it's pretty although I got far better results just having a slider in quick prefs.  I really loved that slider, made such gorgeous lightings.  I've tried adjustments for EEP by clicking around the sun and moving clouds, etc...only seems to change the shadow area or dim but not give pretty results to me.  

Anyways, it's a change and it will take some getting used.  But, I still with LL viewer looking pretty good and FS not, think I have a corrupted something going on here.  

[Rowan Amore]

[Qie Niangao]

1. Repeating for emphasis what others have said: Copybot existed in SL long before the viewer was open sourced. There are other pros and cons of open sourcing the viewer, but they're nothing to do with intellectual property, which will always remain vulnerable as long as SL content is rendered on the user's machine rather than delivered as video from server-side rendering.
2. EEP is considerably more sophisticated than Windlight, but even after all this time it still has some glitches, and users need to invest some effort playing with the wide range of controls to reach the point of knowing what to tweak to get an intended result.
3. It would be informative to know if the About Second Life "Graphics Card" string matches what was reported in About Firestorm. If not, that could account for why the Linden viewer looks pretty good and the Firestorm viewer doesn't, and it would be the first thing to fix before trying Firestorm again. (It's certainly possible that this is exactly what the forgotten AMD fix was about.) If, on the other hand, both viewers show the same integrated graphics system as "Graphics Card" then somebody should examine whether or not a dedicated graphics card is installed.

[Jenna Huntsman]

19 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Well, there is a lot of non-optimized content here too.  However, this computer was built as a gift from a rl friend to me but I said I don't need a mega graphics card as SL is not a video game, so my friend went to the computer store where he was going to have someone build it and the computer builder looked up the specs here and built it, saying he knew about SL but I don't think he really did or maybe he knew about pre-mesh avatar SL.   However, I did not have a problem until now with the EEP viewers both the one I downloaded in December and this one just very recently.  

However, much of the lag from the non-optimized content resolved for me with the cloud and it was great.   Some people have hated the cloud though.  Me, I had a good experience with it.

EEP, I viewed it a bit on the LL viewer which is a bit better right now visually, but the chat and another issue is not good for me, but it's pretty although I got far better results just having a slider in quick prefs.  I really loved that slider, made such gorgeous lightings.  I've tried adjustments for EEP by clicking around the sun and moving clouds, etc...only seems to change the shadow area or dim but not give pretty results to me.  

Anyways, it's a change and it will take some getting used.  But, I still with LL viewer looking pretty good and FS not, think I have a corrupted something going on here.  

I agree, it's likely that the person who built your PC was probably thinking of the SL of 10 years ago, not the SL of today. Either way, telling someone to get different hardware right now is not helpful given the shortages.

Unoptimized content is definitely part of the problem, but LL is working on their ARCTAN project which aims to correct shortcomings in the way avatar complexity is calculated, as well as address how LI is calculated (currently having correct LODs on an item is penalized, whereas using no / very low complexity (completely unrecognizable) LODs aren't. It's why you sometimes see people telling you to turn your LOD up to 4, which you should never do, but it's to exploit this bug in the LI calculation).

A big part of the problem has gone now that SL is in the cloud, but as part of that move it exposed even more shortcomings in the client. SL runs on an absolute dinosaur of a rendering pipeline, which is covered in duct-tape and zipties in order to give it the illusion of being modern. At it's core, it's still that dinosaur. Again, it's something LL is looking into, but are being slow about (Creating a Vulkan viewer is being looked into, but no work has begun as yet as far as I know).

Regarding FS, it's usually a bit behind the LL viewer by a few months, due to how the release cycle works. If you want to use the more recent code, then you might be better switching to the Catznip Beta or CoolVL. I know the LL viewer a couple months back had some issues with materials rendering (which have since been fixed), so I wonder if FS hasn't caught up with that yet, which might be why FS doesn't look that great for you right now.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

32 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Anyways, it's a change and it will take some getting used.  But, I still with LL viewer looking pretty good and FS not, think I have a corrupted something going on here.  

Pretty sure it was figured out back on Saturday that your system is running on the integrated chip rather than an actual Graphic card.. Which would cause all your SL issues. 

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I know you said there is a viewer I can use other than EEP that is not blocked now but many are saying that the change cannot be avoided or it appears that way anyhow...it will go to EEP only sooner or later...?  I dunno.  I appreciate you finding out there is a viewer that is not blocked.  

I wanted to discuss somethings about EEP and lighting because there is a problem with reviews on MP giving one star for some shapes and skins and the review saying something along the lines of 'don't buy this product, the picture you see on MP was photoshopped and your skin or shape won't look anything like that'.  That is not a good thing for creators but I see it a lot.  Now, what do you think is going on with those reviews saying that photo is photoshopped?  The deal is it's not photoshopped it's a windlight photo, probably Annan Adored or CalWL and many users in SL don't even know how to turn a windlight on to view their skin.  They think all the "pretty" photos are photoshopped, so I can see SL wanting to go towards EEP for that reason alone, although MIDDAY is still there and many will use it.  It's not going to solve the problem of many users thinking all the pretty photos are photoshopped, imo.