Category Archives: News

Jan 14 2012

My Trip InWorldz

With such an amazing place as Second Life you never thought that there would be another one! For months now I’ve heard about another virtual world called InWorldz and decided today to give into my curiosity and check  this out. I have to say that InWorldz is a sister Virtual World to Second Life. It being that Second Life is its more popular and more beautiful older sister. It seems to be that IW is what Second Life was a few years ago.

There are several similarities which seems to be quite shocking, it almost as if you can step into InWorldz and when you’re ready you

Desert Island Welcome Area (InWorldz)

can step on a bus and travel across town to Second Life. In IW when you are “born” you land directly into an open welcome area which can be compared to Second Life’s Orientation Island and not it’s highly polished Welcome Island. InWorldz throws you into the mix and  to find your way you must enlist the help of InWorldz Mentors. Friendly people who help you to get settled by directing you to the various freebie stores that are located around the landing spot.

Like Second Life,You are able to use a Marketplace and use virtual currency called OS /I’z compared to SL’s Lindens (L$). Even the way you upload images is different ( Second Life requires you pay 10L$ to upload to images you have taken, while InWorldz is free).

InWorldz has opened a new door for us to explore and we at the Torch SL Guide will happy step through it.

Izzie Morgan (Second Life)

Izzie Morgan (InWorldz)

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Dec 12 2011

Phoenix Viewer: Now With Mesh Option

A couple of months ago we reported a rumor that stated that the Phoenix Viewer would have mesh. They explained that Phoenix could not have mesh because of the codes that were used to make Mesh available in viewer 1.5. According to the Phoenix Blog, that is now   made possible. The Phoenix Crew gave thanks to the creator of Cool VL Henri Beauchamp, who shared the information of how to get Mesh working in viewer 1.5 (Cool VL was one of the first viewer 1 that became compatible with mesh, when it was said that viewer would not function with the new mesh upgrade.)  According to the Phoenix Blog:

Firstly I want to make it clear that the only reason the phoenix viewer has mesh now is because of the tireless and determined efforts of Henri Beauchamp of the Cool VL Viewer. I would encourage those of you who appreciate these efforts to thank him personally. Credits and Kudos! Thank you Henri!

- Phoenix Blog

It also states that the RLVa function of Phoenix will not be updated, according to the Phoenix Blog:

RLVa has not been updated in this Phoenix viewer release. This was my decision, not that of Kitty Barnett. Although I said some time back we would update RLVa in Phoenix it became obvious that the work/time commitment involved in doing so was simply not reasonable or responsible. Kitty is a very valuable asset to this team and I refuse to take her away from the ground breaking work she does in Firestorm and v2/v3 to put a large time commitment into a dying viewer code base. She is worth far more than that. If you want updated RLVa I would suggest using the Firestorm Viewer or Kitty’s own Viewer Catznip. I offer you my sincerest apologies for going back on my word in regards to RLVa update in Phoenix, however I believe it was the right decision.

- The Phoenix Blog

More information can be found on the blog entry for Phoenix and  to download the new Phoenix viewer .

Nov 28 2011

Phoenix Firestorm 3.2 is OUT!

Love Mesh? Love Phoenix? Love Firestorm? Well Phoenix Firestorm 3.2 has been released, following  a few weeks after Linden Labs’ own Viewer 3.2, which got rid of the Basic and Advance Menus (Thank GOD!).

While the previous Phoenix Firestorm Viewer Mesh was a beta, this is, according the Phoenix Viewer Blog, is the official release. They comment:

“We realize this release has been long overdue and we appreciate your patience while we have been very very busy over here in Phoenix Project land working hard to be able to offer you an official release of the Firestorm viewer. It was very important to us to ensure that Firestorm was as bug free and feature complete as possible before calling it an ‘official release’. We did not want to disappoint or insult you by giving you something that isn’t ready and still calling it an official. Although this release isn’t entirely bug free (no viewer ever is of course) or 100% feature complete it sure is damn close! So with that said, we are very proud and excited to offer you the Official Phoenix Firestorm Viewer Release! “

- Phoenix Viewer Team

Enjoy Phoenix Firestorm 3.2  

Sep 28 2011

USMC files DMCA on SLCC’s

DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) has been sent to several SL creators… by the U.S. Marine Core!

According to the U.S. Marine Corps Trademark Licensing Office, the use of the USMC logo, the names USMC, U.S. Marine Corp or any likeness thereof is a violation of copyright law. This means that the creators in SL that have been using this logo or this name have since 2000 been commiting copyright fraud, IF they have earned over 15 000USD per year from the products. Knowing the Linden Rate, I doubt many creators have reached anywhere near those sums, however USMC Trademark Licensing Office decided that they had and filed DMCA’s on all creators that used these.

What baffles most is that they only went for the things available on the Marketplace, not the things available inworld and they never gave any warning to any of the creators. The logo and names in question is also available in US surplus stores, wich according to US law makes it fair use.

What effects will this have on the ones who wears these uniforms, logos and names in SL? Only time will tell, but I know there are a lot of ex-marines out there that are sad about these news, as the mark they wore with pride is taken away from them.

According to one creator, in the article called Hoorah to protect his identity, many ex-marines have praised the 13 items that was taken off the Marketplace, as they have been injured or in other ways been unable to continue their duty in the USMC. One of them even asked Hoorah to recreate the Bronze Star as he had sent his to the iraqui girl who found him and rescued him in the event that lead to the loss of his legs.

Copyright issues is a hard case, as most people are on both sides at the same time and it is hard to know what is a copyright infringement and what isn’t, but as a rule of thumb, if you aren’t the creator of the logo or the name, consider changing it before you sell it.

Sep 25 2011

Imprudence Releases New 1.4 Beta

Imprudence has just released their 1.4 Beta to the world. Imprudence is one of many open source viewers out there is based once again on the ever popular Linden Labs viewer 1.x.

According to the Kokua/Imprudence Blog, this is the second beta to be released and there are a few bugs that still need to be fixed. Another thing they note is that this will not have Mesh Support since they will not be using Henri Beacuchamp’s mesh for viewer 1 patches, and that they are working toward achieving that with Kokua which is their V2/3 based viewer,  though this is yet to be made public.

So Fans of Imprudence never fear for a mesh supporting Imp Based viewer will soon be here! For now, however check out Imp Beta 1.4

Sep 24 2011

The (relatively) new third party viewers

It seems you can’t keep a good viewer down as new third-party viewers have popped up with updated mesh support.  Astra, Catznip, and Niran have joined the family this September, providing an alternative to SecondLife’s Default viewer.

Catznip

Catznip, created by Trinity Dejavu and Kitty Barnett is an a user-friendly third-party viewer which is based on the original V2. According to Catznip’s blog Catznip 2.6 & 2.8 were released on September 20, 2011. Catznip seems like the Imprudence of  V2, keeping things simple and does not over complicate the user experience. The Torch SL Guide recommends this viewer to first time Second Life users.

Niran

Niran’s Viewer is a German Based Viewer and is a Kristens Viewer modification. After discontinuation of the Kristen viewer, Niran developer NiranV Dean started on Niran’s blog :

Kirstens Viewer continues?

YES! , it’s not yet dead i want to continue it , im having fun merging bugfixes and features atm , building my own Viewer and using it =3 *proud is*
                                                                                                                                              – NirvanV Dean
Like Kristens this viewer is aimed at photographers, builders and film makers.

Astra 

Astra is another open source viewer based on the Snowglobe Viewer 1.5. The Torch SL Guide could only get little information on Astra, and this was only found on the Living in a Modern World Blog, so check it out for more information on the Astra Viewer
Sep 24 2011

Phoenix Viewer will Have Mesh Support?

According to Jessica Lyon, one the developer of Second Life third party viewer Phoenix/Firestorm, announced that their Phoenix Viewer might have Mesh support. Thou Viewer1-based viewers is supposed to be unable to hold mesh support, recent development with the Cool VL viewer, developed by Henri Beauchamp who is an avid fan of Viewer1, the technology for mesh in Viewer1 is now a real possibility.

There are a few things to concider thou. Phoenix is still a has-been project, and the development team is still directing their focus on Firestorm and will therefore not have support for Phoenix in the future. This is because Viewer1-based viewers are already on life support and the work with retrofitting the V1-based viewers is way much more than it would take to build new viewers based on V2 and V3. What took 9 months to do on V1 took only 2 weeks to do on Firestorm.

Another issue is that mesh requires SSE2, a protocol not supported by older computers, so a final Phoenix Viewer without mesh will also be released until you with older computers can upgrade. By then you should also have a computer good enough for Firestorm and Viewer2/3.

Sep 22 2011

New Dolphin Viewer

Virtual Worlds Simulator, Dolphin has  joined the growing list of viewers to have its own viewer 3 update. Dolphin, which is a viewer for all virtual worlds not just Second Life, have enhancements that are quite popular with builders, sailors and explorers. Based on Linden Lab’s very own source codes, it has its own version of Viewer 1.5, Viewer 2 and has now upgraded to the new Viewer 3 with mesh support.  Developed by Second Life Resident Lance Corrimal, it is compatible with Windows, Linux and Apple Mac operating systems

New Dolphin Viewer 3 is said to have the following:

  • Dolphin Viewer 3 now defaults to its own separate cache folder (users of previous versions need to reset the cache

    Dolphin Viewer 1.5

    location once this version is installed, unless you already set it to its own location)

  • Restrained Love check box in preferences renamed to RLV to make it more consistent with all other RLV options
  • Chat bar hovertip now properly mentions whispering by using shift-enter
  • Linux build works for users of older linux distributions
                                                                                                                                – Lance Corrimal
For more information on Dolphin’s previous viewers and to down load the new viewer 3, Check out the Dolphin Viewer website.
Sep 22 2011

Goodbye to Kristens Viewer

Second Life Viewer Kristens Viewer has stopped development on September 8th 2011. The viewer started back in 2010, making an alternative to then default viewer Linden Labs V2, which aimed to be a friendly portal for residents who wanted to explore the vast world of Second Life  as a photographer, a builder or a film maker. Kristens Viewer was a mixture of the Snowstorm project and other source codes.

In a blog final blog entry  entitled ‘Sad Farewell’ from the creator of Kristens Viewer, Kristenlee Cinquetti, explains  her reasons for the end of this amazing viewer:

You may have noticed that the client has not been updated in some time.

Farewell KV

Sadly Real Life events have taken an unfortunate turn which basically puts an end to any more development. The Plans for S22 have been shelved and the project has been marked as discontinued. Installers have been removed as they are now very outdated, the sourcecode will of course remain. The website and forums will stay up for as long is required. Also inworld groups will stay active. It is of course entirely your choice as to how long you continue to use the client, however I do stress that it will fall behind with features and it may be wise to seek alternatives in the near future.

- Kristenlee Cinquetti

She ends with a final farewell a big thanks to those who have stood by the making of the viewer over the time.

The Torch SL Guide bids farewell to Kristens Viewer.

For more information on other Second Life Third Party Viewers, Check out the Second Life Wiki