Adam Spark

According to the devs, Phoenix will not. Phoenix development will be ending at some point in the not too distant future. Firestorm, however, will support Mesh soon.

I cant seem to get regular prims to stretch beyond 10M no matter what region im trying to build in. Do I need a mesh-enabled viewer? Seems laughable, but this is LL. Edit. Cant seem to add a comment to Q&A threads so doing it here. Thanks to both of you. :) Was merely wondering about the default prim size. I've been using mega-prims and the like for a while now. Its ok, but has limitations.

Another reason to log out of the grid! (to work on meshes in Blender.) Good strategy LL! NOT. When will in-world tools be innovated? When will LL realize that making V1 viewers useless will lose customers rather than push them to V2 viewers (this is coming from a V2 user too)? Mesh will either struggle to be a part of SL's fabric like sculpts (they are there but far outweighed by regular prim builds) because of the requirement of other software, or they will make half the grid look like junk to older viewer users and send those users elsewhere. And by elsewhere I mean away from SL. Not to V2. Mesh = a non-story at best until we can create it in-world. Bringing creation outside of SL is killing the community further than has been done already.

Yabusaka Loon wrote: That means SL needs to save whole mesh data to asset server each time you move a vertex and that is not realistic. Because their asset server sucks and they refuse or seem unable to change that?

Canoro Philipp wrote: what i meant as "a V2" is a Viewer 2 based viewer. i guess the Phoenix team have worked very hard to bring us this viewer, from the design of the elements (great idea of Phoenix to have the landmarks on top!), they must have wrote the capabilities to display windlight, ambient occlusion, Depth of Field, body physics, outfits, multiwearables and multiattachments, must have been such a hard work. the Lindens sure not did even half of the work that Firestorm team did, i guess more than 90% of the code in Firestorm must be of the Phoenix coders. must be tremendous hard work to build over the work of somebody else! i dont know what you mean by LL denying us a usable viewer, i switched from Emerald to the first Viewer 2 beta, and i have been using it without a problem. To be fair, a number of things like LMs across the top, body physics, multiattachments, ect., are in V2, even if some of it was borrowed from earlier TPV's like Emerald/Phoenix. LM's on top in particular is a LL offering, launched in I think Viewer 2.5 (worth noting that it didn't work for some, like myself, however). Much of Firestorm is based on Viewer 2.5. Some things did come from Phoenix, and there are even a couple extra things, but it is largely a re-shuffling of V2's elements to make for a more useable UI.

Sion Pearl wrote: There's a few things in V2.6+ that I use a lot that aren't in Firestorm. Notably, I find that you can't arrange multiple layers so effectively on Firestorm. And when I clicked on something inworld, I went, crap! when I saw a pie menu. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to get the context menus back (seriously, apart from nostalgia, I am honestly baffled as to why on earth anyone would want pie menus back. I was so glad to see the back of those). I'm glad though that they've added the option to turn off the client tags, though. I like that you can customise the sidebar, though. I like that there are multiple skins (so I can have my sidebar back in the Starlight skin, although there are some bugs with the way Firestorm views profiles). And there's the inbuilt AO, which is an ace idea (the one thing I liked about Emerald/Phoenix, actually). It is marketed as a Beta release. The mesh support will come, and they'll no doubt get it up to speed with the official viewer, the better for the dissemination of all those features that people rave about. Its still built off of 2.5, I believe. Future updates will catch up. I think development so far was about getting a usable V2 out there, and about stability (which Firestorm remarkably has been, even before beta stage).

Cincia Singh wrote: Don't expect "everything" that V2 offers, this public beta is built off version 2.5.1 of the development viewer and the development viwer is now at 2.7.3. Most noteably mesh support is absent. Its a Beta. Mesh hasn't even reached beta stage. It has everything V2 offers, unless, yes, you include development viewers. But why would you do that? Development viewers include unfinished features like Mesh and are only used by those willing to test. Firestorm is only slightly behind the V2 that means anything, which is the official release. Firestorm rocks. I like that you can choose between beta and official search. Was said earlier that its not wise to port back - I disagree, while the new search is in beta. Only when they turn it off should the old search be unavailable as an option. Of course I'm saying this partly because I loathe the new search. I might find things easier when I search, but I'm less likely to bother if I get sore eyes looking at the darn thing. Everything is way too crowded and the fonts are atrociously small. I would rather browse my way through 50 rather useless results in the old search than 5 in the new one. Seriously. Couldn't they just fix the results without revamping the entire layout? The default setup slightly simplifies the transition to V2, and with just a few minutes of set up (which doesn't make it suck, btw), the transition is simplified BIG TIME. No sidebar. Tabs can be detached, moved, resized, and dont redock after logout. Text-labeled buttons along the bottom are replaced by icons similar to the sidebar tab buttons, but thats it. It has the pie menu, by option. Thinking im gonna turn off this default setting, but I realize many folks like the pie menu, so I welcome the choice. Two things really impressed me: I now have favorites on login. I don't know how they pulled off this feature working for me, because it never did in LL's V2, but a big thank you to the Phoenix/Firestorm team for that. Also, they managed to somewhat simplify the media streams without breaking support for shared media, regular media, AND music. You now have a music on/off button (music note) and the usual play button for other media. Nicely done. Has the great V2 features, close to a V1 layout, and several of the niceities of Phoenix.. It rocks.

Deltango Vale wrote: "2. They haven't released a Viewer 3 yet, so the fact that its a V2 release goes without saying. Are you still clinging to the hope they might abandon V2? After 16 months, its time to let go. Every time they release a viewer in any form, it WILL be V2, until Viewer 3 comes around." ------------------------------------------ Half the SL population does not use V2. It is simply one viewer among many, in the same way Sony is one of many companies producing MP3 players or Nokia is one of many cellphone makers. Needless to say, Linden Lab develops the server side for all viewers, but the company must not assume people use the LLV2 viewer. For example, a huge section of the population will eventually migrate from Phoenix to Firestorm. Others are following the Kirsten development stream. Linden Lab needs to climb down out of its ivory tower and see the world though the eyes of its users. It does realize many are using third-party viewers. Don't forget, it was Linden Lab that made its viewer code available so that other people, like the Phoenix team, could be able to make alternatives. The viewer side of things is not a competition. The Phoenix team has said that if LL put out a viewer that was exactly like, or better than,Phoenix, they would consider that a good thing, not a bad thing. So why should LL care if they aren't the ones developing the best viewer in the eyes of many right now? Its constantly evolving, and no matter what viewer you are using, you are still connecting to Linden Lab's service. Rightly or wrongly, the goal with V2 is to obtain and maintain new memberships. Older residents have alternatives. Time will tell if that approach will work. Viewer 2 is an alternative, that has its support, even if not as much as Phoenix. The point I was making is that V2 isn't going anywhere. LL developed it, LL is sticking to it. That was clear a year ago.

Deltango Vale wrote: I downloaded and installed 'it' and 'it' is a V2 Release Candidate with a new search engine, plain and simple. In other words, it is V2, which annoys me because I didn't want to install V2 (because it causes mayhem when I uninstall it). Why it was not referred to as a V2 Release candidate is beyond me, but what's done is done. Hopefully it will uninstall without destroying all my settings. As for search, the category filter does not seem to work. Modelling agencies, dance clubs and shopping centers are showing up top of the list in the real estate section results. Damn! It did destroy all my settings during uninstall. Bah. V2 is a nightmare. It wasn't referred to as a V2 release candidate for 3 reasons: 1. Project Viewers are intended to test a specific major project, such as search in this case, or mesh in another example. It isn't about the viewer as a whole. Eventually the new search will wind up in a V2 beta release, followed by an official V2 release. 2. They haven't released a Viewer 3 yet, so the fact that its a V2 release goes without saying. Are you still clinging to the hope they might abandon V2? After 16 months, its time to let go. Every time they release a viewer in any form, it WILL be V2, until Viewer 3 comes around. 3. They don't do release candidates anymore. They do project viewers, betas, and official releases.

Deltango Vale wrote: Okay, dumb questions. The idea is that one downloads and installs a new viewer - the search viewer - but how does this work if one already has a viewer installed? Does the search viewer run independently of the normal viewer? Is the search viewer a beta version of V3? Is the search viewer an add-on to the normal viewer? Does one run two viewers simultaneously? Do the two viewers merge somehow? I can't make any sense of this. Could someone please explain this new search viewer and how it relates to normal viewers? Its a project viewer. Sort of pre-beta. It is a test viewer - it connects to the main grid in the same way the official viewer does, but they are not the same. Its like using the LL viewer and Phoenix, a third-party viewer. They can all be on your system and you can run either one to connect to the grid. They are independant of each other.

leyna wrote: I hope I'm posting this in the right forum.... There have been a few instances where I've overheard people using voice chat. A couple of times it likely wasn't meant to be private, but on other occasions, I'm confident the parties talking believed no one could hear them. Either because of the way they were talking about the people around them, or how the direction of the conversation was headed in regards to....erm... intimacy. So now when my partner and I are voice chatting, I can't help but wonder if we're being heard. Is it common to overhear people's private conversations? It is possible that they mistakenly believed they were not heard when in fact they were using public chat. Its also possible that they didn't care if they were heard or not. Some people are like that, unfortunately.

There's too much emphasis on happening now with events. I want to be able to plan ahead. It took more effort to view the daily live music calendar and that to me is a step backwards. I shouldn't have to find and check off "ongoing" (after assuming and hoping that would achieve what I wanted). We screamed at you for months to restore the events category calendar and you finally did. Now you've impaired it. The filters should be available right off the bat, not once you've executed a search. The font sizes are atrociously small. Having real difficulty getting the search result previews to close. I expand them and clicking the little x does nothing most of the time. Would rather be able to remember what page a certain result is on as I browse them, as opposed to scrolling back up over 200 results, to be honest. Looking at Happening Now on the front page, theres 9 events. An inexcusable amount of further investigation reveals much more. And why am I having to UNCHECK Happening Now in filters in order to show them? Clicked another category to browse it and it closed the filters and took me to the main page. Your small, incremental fixes were actually working to repair search. Now you've butchered it again (albeit not as badly). Stop tearing down the house to change its entire foundation on us. I know that has to be done every now and then but this is ridiculous.

Mags Indigo wrote: Now that I've played about with it I think it's a really good idea. People will inevitably call it 'dumbing down' but I keep reminding people that not everyone who wants to see what SL is like is a computer/internet 'expert'. The problem is that they shouldn't have to be experts. "Advanced mode" shouldn't be just for advanced users, at least not to the extent that it is now. The learning curve is too big. LL needs to find ways to bridge the gap between the level of expertise required to walk and the level required to do what we are calling advanced tasks, not showcase the former and hide the latter. The beauty of SL lies in its complexity. Why would I, if I were a newbie, just want to chat in SL if I can do that on Facebook, Twitter, MSN, ect.? Presented with basic mode, why would I, if I were a newbie, choose to stick with SL over going to another virtual world? And simply changing to advanced doesn't change the advanced experience. You do that and you are presented with a viewer identical to the official one, from what I can tell. If I were a newbie, please explain to me why I should find advanced features less confusing just because I couldn't access them before I switched modes? Why would I even think to access them if the default setup doesn't even tell me there is more to SL than what I am currently being presented with in basic mode? And when a newbie downloads the viewer - presuming the person even sees the small dropdown box that toggles modes, what is stopping them from switching to advanced before they even login for the first time?

I would much rather see the focus be on presenting a full experience that is easier to understand and better explained. Think about it. To move on to more advanced things users will have to select an option and restart the viewer, as opposed to just going to options they previously skimmed over and avoided until they were ready. Baffling at best. Its been long documented that it was that even basics were confusing that was driving new people away, anyway. People didn't understand stuff like chatting, IM'ing, rezzing... Moving the advanced stuff aside won't solve that. This is akin to how you have to activate the advanced menu. Still makes me chuckle after 4 years. Give users the full experience out of the box, in a way thats easier to understand. Creating a maze of experience levels and options will just make matters worse. Edit: I do love the how-to button in basic mode. But why this wasn't simply added as a removeable button is something you'll never be able to explain to me. All you can do in basic mode is chat and move around. Newbies are gonna think thats all there is and leave. Bank on it. Way to go, LL. Now, by default, 99.9999999999999% of what SL offers won't even be seen by newbies. And we'll be stuck explaining it to them as we are now.

Title change makes sense for two reasons: 1) "Viewer 2" is not one viewer but a series of viewers (ie., Viewer 2.0 and the current Viewer 2.5.2 are two different viewers. The viewer 2 series is constantly evolving. 2) Viewer 3 is likely to be seen before long. The way current development is going, we'll probably be talking Viewer 3 by Christmas. Might as well give the forum a name that will stay relevant.

Govindira Galatea wrote: I don't know what the status is, but I hope that its status is dead, never to be revived again. It is a bad idea, probably born of Linden Lab failing to understand what its true genius is: in its 3D client, the wildly free customization of almost everything, but particularly our avatars. Supposedly the idea was to bring all of that to the browser. No change in what SL is, just ditching the idea of having to download software for it.

Yoki Enoch wrote: Suspiria wrote: Eric Castanea wrote: Please think of your customers, LL. Give us a choice not to use it. Don't force it on us. LL is not forcing viewer 2 on its customers. There are many options each person can decide upon. :smileywink: For now, LL is not forcing Viewer to on us. In time, it will have no choice. When that time comes, just watch what will happen to concurrency levels then. My guess? Viewer 3 will be out by then, likely with a lot of lessons learned (we've already seen some with all the progress V2 has seen in the last year).

Been using it since day one semi-exclusively. Nearly exclusive use (I do experiment with TPV's on ocassion) since they fixed the showstopper group notice fiasco and, later, event search. Took me a week or so to get used to using the sidebar. I admit to hating it at first. But then I realized something - it was hardly ever necessary to have it open! Its like a suitcase - take it out of the closet, pull out what you need, and put it back in the closet. 2.0 had too many headaches and at least one show-stopper for me to use it much. But it had enough goodies to pull me back from time to time. And the problems that existed for me with 2.0 didn't last long. Web-based profiles are a mistake though, and I wish they would stop releasing features that didn't actually work (ie., favorites on login)

The Firestorm devs did a great job so far, their GUI is soo much better and more useable than LLV2 and the devs are not planning to include the web-profiles in their viewer. J. Thats not what they said at their office hour. They said that its based on Viewer 2.4 right now, which is why they don't have web-based profiles, but soon they'll have no other choice. They did say they are having dialogue with LL about changes to web profiles, but they also said they'll be in Firestorm at some point.

Big thumbs up to LL for fixing STORM-954 (Nobody recognized by the viewer as being nearby at over approximately 1000 meters in the sky).

Check the privacy tab in preferences. On the bottom you'll find the logs folder path

Yoki Enoch wrote: Oh, yes, it is still "most". Why do you think LL has not run a poll on it? It did in the beginning, but the response was almost 90% negative. LL knows that it is a terrible viewer at its very foundation, but since all those costs have been put out on it, it simply plows ahead, not listening to its "customers," or not wanting to listen to its "customers," because LL knows best, and we all know that Ukranian programmers are the best there be. LOL! A poll would be pointless for two reasons: A new viewer can now be expected almost every few weeks. Why put out a Viewer 2.5 poll when Viewer 2.6 is likely less than a month away, and viewer 2.7 will likely be out before the summer? Most negative responders will probably be those who have a little experience with Viewer 2.0, and absolutely none with Viewer 2.5 Viewer 2 is a series of viewers that have progressed quite dramatically in a year. Viewer 2.5 is NOT Viewer 2.0.

Camille Serpentine wrote: Yay? A step backward to go forwards? What is the point of having both blogs and forums if the same things can be found in both? The 'blogs' are set up just like forums. That was always the case. Now you can just access them from one page via tabs.

I only started using it exclusively when they re-added the daily events calendar to V2 search (another fix I forgot to mention in my original post). But I too have loved it from the very beginning. Well, ok, I admit - I am now using Firestorm a little bit as well. Not a bad V2-based TPV at all. BUT LL's version is still my viewer of choice.

The first look at Viewer 2.0 was publically released on February 23, 2010. Viewer 2.0 is no longer supported, and the current viewer is Viewer 2.5. Wanted to start this discussion on February 23rd of this year, but the old forums were shut down prior to that date. Any thoughts on the development of the Viewer 2 branch of viewers so far? I still can't forget LL's huge blunder, releasing Viewer 2.0 before it was anywhere near ready. It was ok as far as stability, but it was so far out of touch with how residents were using SL, they might as well have provided a download link to Mozilla Firefox instead. Some things, however, I've always loved. And that is why I have rooted V2 on, because from day one, I saw huge potential. It was absolutely nothing beyond potential in the early days, but it was potential. And lots of it. The favorites bar, the back and forward buttons, teleport history and inventory links I can now not live without. I was also excited about Shared Media, although I still have to dig for content, which is disappointing. What did I hate, that has now been fixed? I hated the way you could not easily attach things to notices. You had to open up inventory and then open a second window, and then do your notice. Today, you just click the inventory button in the notice window to launch an inventory popup. Nice work, LL. Remember how typing often resulted in running into avatars or jumping around like a nut because the chat bar lost focus? FIXED (via preferences)! This, to me, was the biggest fix of them all. Remember how you could not build via right-click on top of another prim, like a house floor? FIXED. Sidebar panels can now be detached. Not a perfectly finished solution, but a start. Although I for one rarely have the sidebar open (and yes, I build. I really don't see how the sidebar is anti-build. But thats another discussion). I like the share option when you right-click on an inventory item. Somewhat recent addition that saves time in some instances. Transparency options have been improved dramatically. I'm sure I'm missing a few things. Point is, the Viewer 2 branch isn't just one viewer, and the series has come a long ways in a year. Any Viewer 2.5 users have any other thoughts about its progress to date?