Why firestorm viewer?

[Paul Hexem]

Chalk me up as another builder that uses the build features often.

Although when I need to do something on my bots, I tend to use Catznip. It seems more lightweight than most of the other graphical viewers.

[MoiraKathleen]

14 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

The other things on your list, no.

While it's true that not everything on everyone's "must have" list is in the default LL viewer,  I think it's still important to mention that a number of the "must have's" may be also available in other 3rd party viewers - not all are exclusive just to FS.  So I would still encourage people wanting to change to a 3rd party viewer to give more than just FS a try out.  Depending on what exactly is on a particular person's "must have" list, they may find that they have more than one 3rd party viewer to choose from. 

[sirhc DeSantis]

Ah. wondered when unhinged topic would arise.

So weapon of source - singularity *

MP and keeping up - SL

Tools - Bloatsphere as beq rocks best tools

*weapon of christopher

 

[Cinos Field]

* Area search

* Better chat interface (almost every other viewer gets it wrong for my tastes...)

* Built-in AO

* Easy hover height adjustment

* RLVa

* Quick undeform/animation reset/attachment refresh

There's probably more but I need at least those for my SL.

[Katydid Heartsong]

7 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I have used Firestorm since it was named Phoenix (and was totally remade). But I still find features I had no idea about.

I knew Areas search and is using it almost daily. When I rez a thing that goes poof. Is it under the house? Is it stuck up in the trees? Did SL catapult it 500m up? I search for name, find it and zoom camera to it. Just to check it is the right one and not the other 3 with the same name I already rezzed. Then I delete it.

Also in stores, when I wait for things to show up and are impatient.

But I did not know I could use Area search, find owner and permanently derender all the neighbor's furniture, house, plants and surround from a list instead of picking one chair, then one lamp, etc. No more annoying stuff around me.

And I learnt that 3 weeks ago?

 

There are Firestorm classes held every day.  Lots of opportunities to learn about the features.  Also, you can file a Jira for improvements you might want to see.  There are no guarantees since we have to find someone who both has the time and the interest to implement things, but many things do come from user input.

[Katydid Heartsong]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

And Favorites. Just a tab I can place where I want, at the bottom or on the sides. I know I can make a folder of "Useful stuff" in my inventory, but clicking on Favorites is faster. It is not smart to have HUDs permanently attached, because I can lag, but when I need one, it is so fast to add it.

And built in Animation Override. And we can have many of them, I am not sure how many. Good if you have human avatars and non-human avatars.

Can we do this in the Default viewer? Saving several graphic preferences, one for taking pictures, with shadows turned on and graphics on ultra. One for events with shadows turned off and graphics on low. One for exploring, with graphics on medium and longer draw distance. Just load what you need.

I must ask, because I never use the Default viewer, and I do not know if it has added some features.

The AO is part of the LSL bridge and is not available in the LL viewer.  I believe Graphic Presets are available on the LL viewer.     in Firestorm you can also change your quickprefs to ones that you use most often, and customize your command keys.

[Ghabyanka]

I don't use it much, I prefer to use the SL viewer, but I've always been curious about that menu as the wheel it has is very cool

[Katydid Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

 

With serious security issues I mean logging in noticing that the L$ stash has irretrievable gone with the wind all of a sudden.
We discussed that before I think on VVO.

Not that I believe that there are crooks among the current TPV developers.
But I do have a phone number and physical address from LL and the RL names of the guys in charge.

if your Linden stash has disappeared, it has nothing to do with what viewer you use.  that is a server side issue.  if your connection is compromised you may not see it at times until you fix that.  Firestorm, or any other TPV,  has nothing to do with your L$ balance, or your actual inventory, etc.  Those are server side functions.

[Katydid Heartsong]

5 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I didn't realize the LL viewer didn't have area search.  Adding that to my list of just haves that firestorm offers.

areas search is great but it can be a bit finicky.  if you find it misses things, you can often move around a bit and it will see things, so one thing is to change your camera placement while using it.  Another way to find things is to use the pathfinding menu and choose region objects... i think that's the setting. 

[Katydid Heartsong]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

Chalk me up as another builder that uses the build features often.

Although when I need to do something on my bots, I tend to use Catznip. It seems more lightweight than most of the other graphical viewers.

you may want to check the Text Mode in Firestorm.  It is just that and may be sufficient for dealing with that.  

[Katydid Heartsong]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

The built in AO is almost mandatory on the hypergrid but may be less relevant in SL. Still, it's one less object to clutter up the view.

But I don't change my animations very often. It's hard to find some that don't make my avatar move like a zombie or an uber-horny teen who hasn't seen a bathroom for two days. If I can find one such animation set, I reckon it's as good as it gets. If I could find one that didn't violate the animation priority system, I would have been content.

With the built in AO, its pretty easy to create your own AO using animations you like.  Its also pretty easy to remove the really stupid looking ones in an AO you put into the FS AO.  

[Katydid Heartsong]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

I may be wrong here but if I understand right, LL does keep an eye on the "official" TPV dev teams and are willing to vouch for them so that shouldn't be an issue.

Yes, they do.  There are policies in place for all of the TPVs and they are held to them.  Firestorm perhaps a bit more because of the number of users.  

[Rolig Loon]

I used the Firestorm viewer for several years but gradually realized that I wasn't using half of the extra bells and whistles in it. It has handy building tools, but nothing that I can't do with the standard LL viewer. It does have a very nice built in AO, which I wish was in the LL viewer.  It also has a very comprehensive wiki for troubleshooting things, and apparently has a very competent support staff.  It's been years since I needed to consult support for anything serious, though, so that's not a major plus for me.  I still use Firestorm when I am kicking around with friends -- mostly out of old habits and because many of them use Firestorm, but also because the AO really is handy.  Otherwise, I use the LL viewer most of the time and am quite happy with it.

[Bree Giffen]

I use the standard LL viewer. I like not having cool features. I do use Firestorm for VR sometimes. I use Radegast if I need to log in multiple alts but that’s not very often. 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Bree Giffen said:

Radegast if I need to log in multiple alts but that’s not very often. 

Radegast is a very capable text client and testament to it's author who passed away in 2016, I'm very thankful Cinder Roxley has been able to continue his work.

https://modemworld.me/2016/03/05/remembering-latif-khalifa/

He's dearly missed. I regret not appreciating quite how much I enjoyed his company till it was gone and there hasn't been a TPV meeting since where I don't think of him

[Katydid Heartsong]

3 hours ago, Ghabyanka said:

I don't use it much, I prefer to use the SL viewer, but I've always been curious about that menu as the wheel it has is very cool

i like the pie menu because it takes up less space on my screen.  

[Marianne Little]

13 hours ago, MoiraKathleen said:

Graphic presets were introduced first in the SL default viewer.  

 

13 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Do you mean graphics presets?

 

Yes, and this is why I said "Can we do it". I was not sure if the Default viewer has it. I use the Default viewer so little, I have written off it years ago.

One of the rare times (years ago) I tried the Default viewer, I found out that I could not resize the camera controls. I had to have the fixed size and it was annoying me so much.

(Close the camera controls and use mouse and ctrl-alt keys.... It is not me.)

Maybe LL has changed it now, but I came to the breaking point and wrote off the Default viewer as: "It has nothing to offer me in handy features, I hate it".

It was too late for me. The Default viewer need a total overhaul, not just patching up.

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Marianne Little
added a few words to clarify, and last sentence

[InnerCity Elf]

I'd probably use the official viewer if it had an integrated animation override system like Firestorm has, because that's the reason I switched. I really like that feature, I have a very basic AO set for events and different ones for all of my roleplay characters, and one for my "me, exploring" character.

Other viewers may have that too, but I can't be bothered to learn navigate a new one, unless someone would tell me about something mattering enough to me to switch again. I did try out others for a short while to see if one would improve performance, reduce lag noticeably, but I didn't see much if any difference.

 

[Panteleeva]

First 4 years of my sl i used official viewer because my previous pc handled it good. Then i was curious about firestorm,also tried singuality viewer and ended up with firestorm,it seemed more comfortable with menu,etc no

[Innula Zenovka]

3 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

 

Yes, and this is why I said "Can we do it". I was not sure if the Default viewer has it. I use the Default viewer so little, I have written off it years ago.

One of the rare times (years ago) I tried the Default viewer, I found out that I could not resize the camera controls. I had to have the fixed size and it was annoying me so much.

(Close the camera controls and use mouse and ctrl-alt keys.... It is not me.)

Maybe LL has changed it now, but I came to the breaking point and wrote off the Default viewer as: "It has nothing to offer me in handy features, I hate it".

It was too late for me. The Default viewer need a total overhaul, not just patching up.

 

Firestorm, like all TPVs, is based on the Official Viewer -- it's the Official Viewer with a variety of extra features, but the functionality is that provided by LL.     

One of the main reasons I use it is that when LL introduces new features (e.g. experiences, materials, keyframed motion, pathfinding, EEP, Bento, animesh) they're introduced in the project and release candidate viewers, and then the Official viewer, months (at least) before Firestorm adopt them, and it's a similar story with RLV/RLVa -- when Marine or Kitty do something new, it's in their viewers months before Firestorm has it.

That means that scripters like me, and the kind of content content creators I work with, need to use the Official Viewer and the RLV reference viewers for content creation so we can properly exploit all the creative possibilities offered by LL's latest functionality as soon as it's available, and thus have plenty of content ready for when people with Firestorm can use it.

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

8 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

One of the rare times (years ago) I tried the Default viewer, I found out that I could not resize the camera controls. I had to have the fixed size and it was annoying me so much.

(Close the camera controls and use mouse and ctrl-alt keys.... It is not me.)

I detest the clunky camera control widget, which takes up space unnecessarily on the screen.  I find it much faster to use the mouse and Ctrl - Shift - Alt keys for camera control.  And I can see the whole screen , without having to peer around an intrusive widget.  I use the standard LL viewer most of the time, but I manage the camera in FS the same way.

[Innula Zenovka]

Come to think of it it, I tend to have a default viewer for each of my various alts, and my overall screen layout is different in each case, as it's evolved over time.   I've never really thought about it, but my Firestorm alt uses some small widgets to do things that, in the Official Viewer and Catznip,  I do with keyboard shortcuts.

I'll have to try disabling the widgets and see how I get on. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Innula Zenovka

[archangel969]

Fot me it's the way things look like with Firestorm. When I first used it, half a year ago or so, it was like my first time with new glasses and see things a lot clearer. That is maybe odd, because I read that the graphics in SL viewer should be better. But in my experience everyting looks nicer in Firestorm. Also, it seems that the time till all the surroundings are properly rezzed takes longer in SL viewer. I didn't use the area search yet, but I will. Because I just lost a school of fishes. So now I get those enoying 'are not alowed in this area' messages. My partner in RL - who is not in SL - bursted out laughing when I cried: 'I lost my school of fishes!!' LOL

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, archangel969 said:

Fot me it's the way things look like with Firestorm. When I first used it, half a year ago or so, it was like my first time with new glasses and see things a lot clearer. That is maybe odd, because I read that the graphics in SL viewer should be better. But in my experience everyting looks nicer in Firestorm.

Have you looked at the default Windlight settings in Firestorm and in your installation of the SL viewer?

One difference between the Official Viewer and, I think, Firestorm and all the other TPVs I've used is that the Official Viewer's lighting settings don't persist between sessions.    That is, whatever Windlight and time of day you had set before, it resets to region default each log in.

I used to think that was a nuisance but I've come to realise it's no hardship at all, and that I'm very glad the viewer works that way.

That's because region windlight settings are so important in SL design and photography in so many ways.    Content that looks good in one particular daylight setting may not look at all good in all others, after all, and I've certainly come to appreciate a whole area of SL design and artistry simply by letting my viewer see it as I travel round SL.

If I don't want it on -- if the region thinks it's the middle of the night and I want to see what I'm doing, or if I'm doing some photography or whatever, it's easy enough to switch to the lighting I want at the time.

But simply having it on by default, and having to spend a moment to decide to turn on the lighting I want, if I need to see to work, or see what something looks like in the dark or I want everything to look nice and bright and cheerful (or gloomy and depressed, to suit my mood) or whatever, has simply made me aware of a whole side of SL I'd otherwise never see, not only on particular parcels and private regions, but also (indeed, particularly) on Bellisseria and the other LDPW and Linden-designed regions, where they've taken a lot of care over the default lighting.

If I don't like what I see, I can easily see something more to my immediate taste, but at least I get to see it before deciding.

tl;dr  -- who would think to turn "region default" back on as the lighting each time, if it wasn't the default?

Edited July 17, 2021 by Innula Zenovka

[archangel969]

3 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

who would think to turn "region default" back on as the lighting each time, if it wasn't the default?

Oh, there you are so right. I would not, that's for sure.

Well, all is interesting what you wrote, and I am eager to learn from someone who is definately a more advanced photographer. I take a lot of pictures, but I certainly don't reach that high level of some of you I see on Flickr. It is so amazing and I enjoy it very much. For the pics I make of my land it isn't that serious. It's like a picture album for me, tot see how I have developed the place. But I also make pictures when I interview residents. And then it is definately serious that the quality is good. Well, all that is a bit of a sideway from the topic I am afraid. But just like to say I appreciate your thorough explanation.