Disclaimer

Black Dragon is MY Viewer, i decide which feature i want to add and which to remove, i share this Viewer to show the world that user base size is not important, i do rate quality by effort, thought and love put into the project, not some rough estimated numbers. I consider feature requests only if i you can name proper valid reasons i can agree on. It is my (unpaid) time i'm putting into this project, i'm not here to cater to every Joe's desires.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Release 1.46

WARNING: OPENGL COMPATIBILITY OPTION IS STILL DANGEROUS! ASWELL AS VERTEX ARRAY OBJECTS!
NOTE: IM SORRY THAT I WONT SUPPORT OPENSIM.
NOTE #2: PRESS F2!!!11!
NOTE #3: IM ALSO SORRY ABOUT THE DELAYED RELEASE. HAD TO FIGHT THOSE THINGS CALLED EMOTIONS!
NOTE #4: INITIAL FREEZES ON LOGIN STILL HAPPEN BUT ALOT LESS , PROGRESS!


UPDATE #2:
Fixed 64bit and 32bit versions are up, this fixed release also comes with some small additional fixes, read them below, thank you for your patience.



1.46(.1)
fixed Outbox and Machinima sidebar toolbar icons not found
fixed login layout selection
fixed Viewer not initializing when no settings were present
fixed the Viewer crying about a Debug called WatchdogDisabled which doesnt exist
fixed the Viewer using Second Life´s default Cache location
removed some internal features that served no purpose atm

UPDATE:
The Settings issue has been fixed. I will now start compiling 2 new versions that contain this fix. You will laugh when you hear what was causing it. A fix that fixed a crash when setting overall graphics to low. Will update when the new Downloads are available.

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|                                                                              |
|=======<WARNING DANGER AHEAD>======= |
|___________________________________________|
*LOUD SIREN*

Remember kids , when playing with Nirans Viewer you should always keep above in mind!
It may not save your life.

Ok. Lets get to the Release cuz...


Purple rapist sergal wants to share something with you!

Its an exciting one because UI changed. Drastically. Everywhere. Just preferences...

User Interface:

Gentlementlementlementlemen, may i show you Preferences 2.0?



Im making a new , obviously Skyrim inspired preferences panel , that again hopefully makes stuff a bit easier. Without logical categorisation like before. As for now it can be shown via F2 key and will later hopefully fully replace CTRL + P preferences floater , no more prefs floater floating around , just a plain , fullscreen preferences panel, that hopefully looks and feels smoother than the static preferences window.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to tell me ideas for this new preferences panel , also report any feature that is NOT working. Basically those should be all color selectors, camera preset editors , nearly all tone mapping settings and some others and YOU are here to find those "others".

NOTE: The background blur effect was done manually via DoF and will later happen automatically if DoF is enabled and if this feature itself is enabled.

I also fixed the graphics panel internally which was necessary for the new preferences panel , in order to prevent the quality dropdowns from flying around.

I removed the Darkness Default skin from the skin selection , because it wasnt available anymore anyway but could lead to problems when selecting it. I also added the long missing Ashen blood preview image to the skin selection :) aaaand i enabled Azure skin again , which should now work mostly correct. If not please tell me.








Rendering:

A few fixes here and there , some tidy up in the rendering pipeline and now fully fixed Alpha´s and Flexis HURRAY!

I´ve redone the Tone Mapping defaults to look even more like the old one , the old remake was crap, this one is better and for an even better better old style look try the "Tone Mapping" Windlight Preset i made. In all other circumstances it should look pretty ok and normal.

Sunshine:

Project Sunshine has been merged into my Viewer up to what is most recent and open for everyone to see at the moment of merging. I am not sure if it works as it should , i havnt taken a look into the Project page yet which probably list some SIMs that support server side baking. If you want to try it , you can enable server side baking via Debug Settings -> UseServerTextureBaking. You will need someone else in order to check if it works correctly.

Linux:

Well , sadly Miguael left me again , this time forever as it seems. He couldnt stand my absolutely annoying , bad and ignorant habits and characteristics :/. In that case i wish him good luck for whatever he is doing now , probably continueing his own Viewer ArtVi based on my Viewer. This probably means that Linux might be left behind for this Release aswell, however i will post an update if anything changes.

Mac:

I have to clear some things up here , due to more and more Mac users becoming interessted in my Viewer.
I dont have a Mac compiler , nor a Mac PC , nor someone with a Mac that could do it. Theres this really crummy thingy about crosscompiling i WONT do. It makes trouble. Alot. I wouldnt even be able to test it.
Sorry :/

Performance:

Some users might experience extreme and constant FPS drop. This is sadly usual. Thing is, my (may it be called totally fucked up) old version was so "fucked up" and missing so many patches and fixes that it became incompatible with what is most important for this Viewer. Shining. Shining is the repository/workflow often seen as the rendering interessted side of development. Those issues are tagged as SH-XXXX , they add , fix or remove rendering related stuff, you may remember that this Viewer is all about rendering. And some secondary things. However , merging shining to find out that it doesnt work anymore pretty much destroys the whole purpose of this Viewer , so i had to give up the old "fucked up" code that somehow ran very fast and stable for a lot of people , to continue further on. I´ve replaced this code mostly with Linden Development , that means all bad habits and behaviors the Linden Viewers have , will most likely find its way into my Viewer + ALOT more. Im working on fixing them , or finding someone to do it. It will take lots of time and fuckups to get this Viewer back to what fucked up state it had when i left it behind , please keep that in mind.

Snapshots:

NOTE: All those pics have been shot at a Resolution of 6000x3306 and higher!








Enjoy,
Niran *pawprint*


Changelog:

1.46


MAINT-1262 Fix for crash when setting graphics to Low
MAINT-1161: non standard sea level not correctly rendered around private islands.
MAINT-1147 Don't rebuild volume meshes on region crossing.
MAINT-840 VWR-28604 DEV-2548:  [PUBLIC]Object by multiple creators shows creator as "(unknown)" in Inventory.
MAINT-775 Fix for particle index pool corruption on teleport.
MAINT-646 Factor std::vector out of lloctree
MAINT-442: [PUBLIC]Unable to change parcel restrictions for a scripts-disabled parcel in a damage-enabled region.
tweaked all Spellcheck floaters
tweaked UI Preview floater
tweaked default Tone Mapping preset to be even more old style like
fixed lots of warnings , also added new ones ;)
fixed some internal labelings in a few of my files
fixed Ashenblood having no preview texture in skin selection
added a completely new stylish preferences panel (WIP)
removed darkness default skin from skin selection
updated DejaVu Fonts to 2.33
changed bzip2 to xz compression
enabled Water Reflections to be changed on the fly without having to reload shaders
moved Only Friends and Groups can call or IM me to Privacy panel
moved Azure into seperate skin , Darkness into default and fixed lots of problems with that
merged Project Sunshine (disabled by default)

20 comments:

  1. ARRGH!!! *frantically clicks on the 32x download text which is apparently not a link* I think you forgot to link it. x3!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, derp, I see what's going on now.

      Delete
    2. Sourceforge was having problems , but everything should be up now.

      Delete
  2. Going to install it asap, still need to ask you, did you have a significant drop on Fps since v1.44? As it was by far the most stable, faster and with better graphics i tried (besides the alpha bug that i solved every time just by checking and unchecking dr on the f1 key!
    And another qusstion, if you made the new pereferences on the F2 key, how will work the gestures that i have there?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. they will not work. It is temporarly and for testing purposes

      Delete
  3. I can move them to another key, so im glad is only for testing, cause i really use a lot the F2-F12 (all my sailing/flying and racing commands are there!).
    But there is not a preference button that we can drag already?
    Btw, when you say do not cleas settings, it means do not delete the folder niran viewer on the raoming, right?
    Second life folder under local roaming and the Niran viewer under c:program files(X86) should be deledted but not that 1?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. You can delete the Viewer folder and the Local (SecondLife) Cache one , but not the Roaming one which contains your settings. Im still trying to figure out why it crashes on start when no previous Settings are available.

      Delete
  4. I hope in a few hours ill be able to install it (Still a few work ones to go:()

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. writing an update , the Settings issue has been fixed and i will recompile and upload a new version soon!

      Delete
  5. I'm not sure what you're expecting from anything related to "server-side baking", as this is dependent upon two things:

    a) A new http texture fetch mechanism, which according to LL will not be rolled-out server-side for (approximately) another two months.

    b) The availability of the Texture Compositing Server, which LL have yet to fully define and build.

    Once the server-side changes have been made (and again, LL have indicated this will not be until there has been extensive Beta grid testing), the viewer will *automatically* switch between the current and "new" baking service depending on the region capabilities information it receives from the simulator (i.e. if it connects to a region able to use the "new" service, then server-side baking will occur; if the region is unable to use the new service, then viewer-side baking will continue to be used).

    As there are currently NO regions on the main or beta grids capable of using the new service, then I believe the viewer can only use the viewer-side mechanism, regardless of any debug setting incorporated into the release. See: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/project-shining-what-it-means-for-the-viewer/

    Or listen to: http://lecs.opensource.secondlife.com/tpvd/meeting/2012-07-13.mp3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the reason i disabled it by default. however , it is in and testable IF there are ANY SIMs ever found that support this. better to early than too late.

      Delete
    2. No sims at present, and won't be for (probably) another six months (working on LL's estimates). So you're more than early :). As such the debug setting is currently pointless, as is drawing attention to it.

      Delete
    3. this debug is not from me , its just the most recent Sunshine Projct merge.

      Delete
    4. Oh and , im always drawing attention to everything. Better than saying nothing at all, i want people to know what im doing.

      Delete
  6. I'm having trouble with the viewer. Every time I try to start it, it just crashes at "Initializing VFS..."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "UPDATE:
      The Settings issue has been fixed. I will now start compiling 2 new versions that contain this fix. You will laugh when you hear what was causing it. A fix that fixed a crash when setting overall graphics to low. Will update when the new Downloads are available."

      has been written due to a reason. The reason is the problem you just encountered. Fixed version should be up in a few minutes. I will update the blogpost then.

      Delete
  7. Well, i got the 1st 64b version and it runs like a charm:)
    Alpha problem solved;)
    Seems even a bit high fps then before on max settings!
    Just crashed 2 times and i know cause i was zooming around with max settings and draw distance of 256, while opening profiles on a full sim;)
    However now i have to install it again:( HAaaaaaaa but i will not delete the settings folder no way!)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Installed the new 1, didn't clear my settings, all works perfectly and as i expected same on my soul mate computer:)
    I have to be honest, the F2 works if you have no gesture on it, if you have the gesture will work instead!
    So as i really don't feel the viewer needs more cluttering, i didn't even try to see its options, as i use the preference short cut when i need to (Unchecked the option tone mapping is the only thing i need to do there, while underwater, as i use the default LL one and its 2 bright with TN, perhaps that tag can be placed on the machimina bar as well?)
    Crossed a lot of sims and tlp like 100 times (We where looking for a affordable spot on the black sea region, it took us 4h but we did manage to get a lovely one;)).
    No crashes and same with my soul mate!
    So the Rolls Royce is working perfectly!
    My Soul mate does not use tone mapping but at night, she says it makes all to bright (using my settings) during the day, i use it all times but underwater so i guess its use will depend on how any will want to feel and see the world.
    I just have a problem and i believe is not Niran related, but LL code, is the delay i have when i try to open an im, it takes it seems forever before the window opens!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. that usually indicates that the Viewer is still fetching names. Example: You log in and try to open an IM , but your Friendlist hasnt appeared "Online" on the right side yet , that means it isnt finished working on fetching names n stuff , resulting in IMs getting delayed until that is done. Depending on server issues and maybe even region lag it might happen too , again because of this avatar you try to IM not beeing fully fetched yet

      Delete
  9. Yesterday i did fly again, this time for more then 200 sims, from our home on the black sea to Corsica and back, around 150m, at max speed, for more then a hour, on max settings but draw distance at 256 and not a single crash:)
    And I did race for the 1st time of max settings as i eas getting 35fps steady, more then enough to race on a small track;)

    ReplyDelete