Category Archives: Viewer Reviews

Featured
Apr 10 2013

SL Viewer Walktrhough – Starting at the top, V3 Walkthrough

So you want to get into Second Life? Well, for that you need a client to run Second Life from, in addition to an account. The client is called a Viewer and in the next few weeks I am going to try and explain the difference between different viewers for you, starting with the standard viewer, also called V3 (since it’s the 3rd version of the SL standard viewer, or V3.5 in some cases since it’s slightly updated since its release). Viewer 3 can be downloaded here!

V3 is far from basic, it contains every feature Second Life has to offer, and Second Life has a LOT to offer. However, this is not to be confused with everything OSGrid has to offer, OSGrid is a “spinoff” from Second Life taken from an earlier version and developed separately, and as such it has some features not offered as standard in Second Life. Some of these features are so called client based, meaning it won’t affect the “world” in any way, but it enhances your experience of it. It may be everything from the ability to color the texts in chat to built-in animation overriders. The viewers required to use these features are called Third Party Viewers and I will go over them in future articles. We have some articles on this subject already, so if you are impatient, you can read those and figure out the differences that have come since those were written.

As a new resident, most of the features won’t mean much to you, so if you get hung up on something I’ve written about here, ignore it and move on. Continue reading →

About these ads
Jul 6 2012

Second Life Mobile Grid Client for Android

So you’ve joined Second Life, and you decide to go out and fight some dragons. Or maybe hunting for gold is more your style. Or perhaps you have a job modeling, or you have your own clothing store.

However you use Second Life, for many people, it is not a game. It is not something to drop at a moment’s notice.
So how do you keep at it when you’re on the move?

If you have an Android device, you have two options: Lumiya and the Mobile Grid Client.
I passed on Lumiya; you have to pay for it up front, my tablet has a love/hate relationship with Google’s market system, and I didn’t feel like buying something I might not be able to use.
But Mobile Grid Client offers a two-week free trial, and I was willing to experiment.

The first time I loaded MGC, I tapped my way through the user agreements on to the login screen.

And there I found my first problem.

Every time I tried to log in, it gave me an error message. Selecting a different grid changed the wording, but the message was the same; it would not let me log in.

Finally I convinced the tablet to connect to the marketplace, reinstalled  MGC, and logged in.

Then came the hard part, figuring out how to use this client.
Depending on orientation, the main menu was located on either the top or the left of the screen, with four options: chat, IMs, People, and Map.

The first three are easy enough: you can chat with your fellow SLers and view past messages and status alerts; you can send instant messages; and you can check out which of your friends, groups, and random strangers are nearby. You can also offer teleports to your location, or accept offers to teleport to theirs.

The map, though, seemed an anomaly.

It shows where you are, but does nothing else. So how do I move around?
The short answer, it seems, is I can’t. I can talk to people and I can teleport. But I can’t walk around, and I can’t interact with things. So the hunting for gold is out.

Some people may like the Mobile Grid Client. Some people may find it suits their purposes, just as my tablet suits mine.
But not me. I want more features. I want the force of my computer behind my exploration. I want a viewer that, unfortunately, is not designed to use on the road. But if my luck holds, I will continue to explore it…at least until my two weeks are up.

Mar 28 2012

Exodus of SL

Exodus is one of the newest additions to the SL Third Party Viewers and it’s with mixed feelings I do this review.

It is still in beta, so there will be changes before the final release. The interface is a slimmed down version of the Viewer 3, with a few notable differences. Among others, the draw distance settings like in Phoenix/Firestorm, customization for the chat and the Raid Manager.

The Raid Manager is a way for you to track the traffic of your favourite places without having to physically be there or checking the map. This way you’ll always know if your favourite club is full or have an event, or if your store has a lot of visitors. To add a sim to the Raid Manager, right click your landmark for the sim and select “Look on Map”, or simply look it up on the map manually. In the lower right of the toolbar in the map interface, you’ll see the button “Add to Raid Manager”, click it and you’ll be prompted to input the name you want for that location. Click ok and you’re done. On the left-hand toolbar you have the button for the raid manager, just click it and see all kinds of traffic-related information on all the sims you have added.

Through the “e”-icon on the side panel, you can access all kinds of advanced settings, from Draw Distance to Chat Commands. I’d recommend you to look at these carefully and play around with them, to see what personal settings you like the most.  There’s a lot more settings than most viewers, here you can even change the sounds that play when you teleport.

Looking through the settings, it’s apparent that many of these are for roleplayers, with sound settings for when you “die”, quick-buttons for accepting teleports and auto-mouselook on certain events. You can even auto-accept teleports from people you know and have marked with a color (that will show on their tag, color is changable).

There are chat commands for just about anything, TP to ground, setting draw distance, set home location, TP to certain height, rezing a platform… These are all handy for builders, RP’ers and explorers.

Another huge difference from most viewers is the fact that they kept the Avatar button from the standard viewer, so everyone can take part of the recent, rather awesome LL avatars.

It might take some time to get used to this very different interface, even if you come from the standard viewer, but trust me… It is definitely worth it!

Latest version of Exodus can be found here.

Mar 19 2012

Exodus The New SL Viewer

Exodus is a new third-party viewer to join the Second Life downloadable viewer family. It is the first in a new generation of viewers which is modelled after the default viewer 3. While it is similar there are a few differences that make this viewer unique in its own rights.

Exodus Viewer Beta first look.

Similarities to the vanilla viewer are cosmetic, the bottom bar, has all the same thumbnails that makes it easy to use for residents who are familiar with the Lindens default V3. The left bar is a lot longer, with the seven original main thumbnails and six added extras including Raid Advisor, Exodus Preferences, the original Preferences, Redraw, and Tools. Along with its many new features, this beta includes a function that informs users when a new resident has entered a region. This is a push beyond the already popular Radar function in other viewers such as Phoenix, Firestorm and Singularity. It seems unclear how long this new viewer will be able to keep these functions in due to the new Linden Labs Policy that puts restrictions on third-party viewers. Since Exodus is still in its beta state, maybe it will not give into the policy just yet.

For more information on Exodus visit the website. A full review will be coming soon.

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 23 2011

Mesh Viewers – Where are they?

We have talked a lot about what mesh is, but not how you can experience it. Therefore I’ve taken the liberty of compiling this list of mesh-able viewers for you, just click the name for a link to the download page.

Viewer3 The standard SL viewer from Linden Labs. Great for newcomers, but it isn’t as customizable as the other viewers and it can be a bit unstable at times. At the moment one of the only viewers that can upload mesh.

Firestorm 3.x The next step in the evolution of the Phoenix Viewer. Powerful, but still in the beta stage, so it isn’t as stable as other viewers. Constantly updated and very customizable.

Kirstens Made for snapshots, machinima and other graphically heavy projects, this viewer was one of the first third party viewers to support mesh. This version is the final version thou, as the developer have discontinued the project, but it can upload mesh, so it might be a good alternative to V3.

Dolphin Viewer 3 The most stable viewer that supports mesh so far, and it have great customizability too.

Cool VL Proud to be ahead of LL on many bugfixes, Cool VL attempts to go beyond the standard viewers.

Stay tuned for the updated list as more viewers gets support for mesh.

Aug 24 2011

First Look: Viewer 3

When I heard that there was a new what I like to call Vanilla Viewer – the benchmark where all other tastes derive from – I knew I needed to check it out. Check out Morphman’s post on the blog as this is supposed to be a major release.
Viewer 2 got a lot of slack and negative comments by a lot of die-hard viewer 1.x fans as it was a major move away from classic looks: new interface, engine coding and feel. What Linden Labs forgot then was that people don’t like too much change. I guess they listened to the complaints as Viewer 3 has a v2 look and feel… or is it just a rename of the year old bottle of wine?

Login Screen

The login screen did change a bit: you get a website overview that in my opinion could have been more integrated into the viewer: the colors are more “website” than “viewer” based. I have a feeling this has been rushed and not looked over by a graphic designer, as the image on the top is pasted against the top bar, rounded at the bottom means for me it’s missing a bit on the top… But that’s pure esthetic!

What is interesting to me is to see the “What’s Hot Now” screen, you get an overview of the busiest sims of that moment, although I’d have to investigate if those are real-time stats (I doubt it) or some timescale is being used (more logical and server economic I think). The “Destinations” is what it is: destinations filtered by their category. If you want to feature in this I guess you have to take time to put them in the “Events” diary. Finally something that might make this feature a bit more appealing to use, as it might bring in new people to your events.

The more interesting thing is what happens when you look at the bottom: no change whatsoever! You still get a choice between “Basic” and “Advanced” mode – I’ll be skipping the former as in my opinion it takes too much away from the SL experience and thus being pointless (don’t get me wrong, it’s a great way to ease new players into the SL experience, but most will skip it within a day or two I think :)

Checking out the viewer

Of course this release gets a new number as it incorporates mesh into SL. But what is more interesting to me is if the minor “problems” have been solved… So mesh for me isn’t all that important – yes I am excited about it for other reasons, mainly to see what builders are going to do with this new toy!

Not a lot has changed at first look: the much hated – but in my opinion very useful – sidebar is still there. You get the “Linden home screen” with the same basics that were shown in V2, so i’m going to skip that. I do recommend as a new user to go over them, there is some useful stuff in there!

The profile screen got revamped when you click the “profile” button, more in touch with the website version of your profile. This was not unexpected as LL announced a more web-inclusive interface. The other tabs haven’t changed at all on a first glance. The favourites bar is still there – one of the features that I really liked about V2 from the start!

What I suspected: V3 is just V2 with mesh code incorporated into it. Not a bad idea to rename this, as it is a major difference in user experience inworld, but not per sé viewer-wise.

What is really getting on my nerves is that 3rd party viewers are able to render things right, but V3 still has a problem rendering textures right for me when I switch to “ultra” graphics settings… I can only compare to Firestorm at the moment, but there I can run SL smoothly with everything bumped up to maximum, V2 and V3 just aren’t up to the challenge! Frame rates drop, making my experience less than optimal… Why is it that a brand new high-grade computer still isn’t able to use Ultra graphics settings, Linden Labs? Why still include this!

The other thing that still get on my nerves is “depth of field”: granted, a useful tool when you’re taking pictures in Second Life, but why hasn’t this option been moved to the “snapshot” function? Depth of field isn’t that useful on a day-to-day basis.

Yes, I agree these are minor things, but annoyances non the less…

Pro
• No major changes – except of course for including mesh
• Various tweaks, like the web-integration that has been refined.
Con
• Messed up Ultra – at least for me
• Minor gripes solved in 3rd party viewers still present in Vanilla…

Conclusion

Viewer 3 is a logical rename of the previous viewer, giving users access to the long coming promise of mesh inclusion. I’m sure in time coming this will become apparent to all users, as mesh will steadily be introduced to the grid. Don’t worry, it will live perfectly next to prims and sculpties as we know them, so you don’t have to start buying new stuff immediately!

Hopefully my minor problems with V3 will be solved in the (near?) future, although these are my gripes and as with everything: you can’t please’m all!

Sven Hyx 

Aug 23 2011

Mesh is live, and so is Viewer 3

Today, august 23 2011, Linden Labs released the new Viewer 3.

But what is different? you ask.

I can’t see anything different! you say.

Well, it is still, basically, Viewer 2, but with one major change: MESH!

Mesh is a new feature that has been in the testing for about a year or so that allows designers to use a 3D designing software, such as 3DS or Wings3D, to create a model, much like a sculpted prim, but without the restrictions that sculpted prims have. It is still under development, so expect rapid changes, but some can actually make meshes and upload them right as we speak.

What you need to upload meshes are a SL account with payment info and you need to take a test, showing that you know about the copyright laws. This is to protect LL and the possible creators because meshes, unlike most things you can upload, is so easy to just steal from others. You can basically just download a model from a game and upload it as it is, but if you do, you are violating the copyright laws. If LL don’t know who you are, they will be held accountable, so that’s why you need the payment info on file.

Meshes are very different from the rest of the graphical elements in SL, therefore the old viewers can’t see it. That’s why Viewer 3 was released along with the mesh. Due to ownership outside LL of some graphical elements, they can’t release the source code to the third party viewer creators, that’s why all other viewers will take some time to update. It is said that Firestorm will be able to view meshes within a week and users of Firestorm will be able to upload meshes within a month, thou this is still in the rumor state.

As of now, Imprudence is the only viewer that is based on Viewer 1 that will be able to view meshes, but they are about a year away from getting there.

secondlife
Jun 26 2011

Basic Viewer 2 – An in-depth look at what you’ll see the first time you log on

Basic Viewer 2 – An in-depth look at what you’ll see the first time you log on.