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.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Seriously?

I mean, seriously? 44 spam comments?


the worst of it, this fake account is named NiranV Dean, causing my own comments to be marked as "Spam"...

44 Comments about all sorts of gay fantasies someone is having (i most likely know who's doing it anyway). Is this really necessary? Someone must be REALLY bored to do this nearly every day, with every post i write.

Update 2.2.3

Fixing time.

As promised i have been working on fixing some stuff and bringing the Interface up to date with older Nirans Viewer builds, i think you will be happy with the new(old) stuff.


User Interface:


The Navigationbar has been overhauled alot, the balance thingy shouldnt overlap the rest anymore, the balance icon has been changed and our lovely quick Windlight buttons are back aswell as my much needed quick Searchbar.

People was bugging me extremly because it simply looked way too grey and misaligned, space wasting and broken, i fixed the avatarlistitems, included the "always show permissions" fix i made and generally changed everything a bit here and there to make People look like a nice and clean panel.


The RegioLight or "use region time" button and the "use daycycle instead of fixed sky" checkbox should now work as intended, they might bug out a little bit at start but, going to another SIM and clicking stuff here and there a bit, switching it on/off should fix it once and for all (might have been just me beeing stupid).

Color Correction in graphic prefs can now be clicked and SHOULD BE if you use Tone Mapping because otherwise it will just look like a bright grey/white broken... thing. Remember that my pictures are all made with Tone Mapping and Color Correction, it does not look like that? Then you missed something.

Some information about that can be found in previous post comment sections

Wikipedia says:
"Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors to another in order to approximate the appearance of high dynamic range images in a medium that has a more limited dynamic range."

As far as i understand this means translated in common language:
"Tone Mapping is a Post Process Effect that aims at 'equalizing' or 'normalising' colors to a good medium"

You can notice this effect on the sky. The reason i always keep saying that Tone Mapping is supposed to be used with Color Correction and vise versa is that Color Correction how i configured it aims at adding contrast to the picture without destroying the original Tone Mapping effect which could be described as "smoothing" colors. Basically Color Correction adds back in the darkness and brightness but keeps the 'normalised' colors for them, as example you have a bright blue, a normal blue and a dark blue (a sky as example), Tone Mapping 'normalises' these colors by reducing the range between these colors, thus making the bright blue just a 'a bit brighter blue', the normal blue becomes a bit more colorfull and the dark blue becomes a 'a bit darker blue' that will result in a "duller" image but also in a smoother color transition which i think is very important for a nice picture, no one wants color banding, Color Correction will now find and correct other parts of the image like very dark colors (dark grey to black) and makes them "dark" , really dark compared to the overbrightened image without Color Correction, you will now have a combination of a smooth transition between colors and still maintain a "wide" range between colors in terms of having dark and bright stuff.

Maddy also showed me that the minimap looked broken. I tell you, NOT ANYMORE!

With the recent changes you can now also move your floaters over the Navigationbar instead of just below it :P



Rendering:


Not much has been done here as the major graphical changes have been done in the previous beta already but hey know what? You had no options to finetune SSAO and Shadows in any way, that means you still use the defaults which in turn means that you wont need a settings redo to get those new settings i made to fix too sharp Shadows/SSAO. Life can be so easy if you cant break anything.



enjoy,
Niran.

Changelog:


2.2.3 Beta

added quick Windlight and browser icons to Topbar

added quick Search field to Topbar
added a whole bunch of customization Debugs (non functional)
added Minimap chat range rings
added missing icons for Windlight editors
added some missing inventory art assets
fixed Shadows and SSAO beeing way too crisp causing Shadow/SSAO pixelation
fixed Avatarlistitems breaking whenever someone has voice
fixed Minimap background color
fixed a crash when opening water preset editor
fixed Color Correction beeing not clickable
fixed Block list bottom button panel layout bugging out
fixed a crash when opening "Set Window Size" floater
fixed set window size calculation for correct resolution changes
fixed RegioLight and "use DayCycle instead of fixed Sky" buttons
fixed "Click this to refresh your L$ balance" panel overlapping half of the navigationbar
merged CHUI including fixes to allow quitting the Viewer on first try now
changed Topbar layout and brought it up to date with the old style layout
changed People floater layout and made it look nice and clean
changed some loadingscreen tips to better fit the new Viewer
changed background color for all lists to 50% alpha black
changed toolbar positioning a bit so floaters snap closer to the Navigationbar

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Updates.

Blog


Recently i've had an increased number of spam comments from someone naming himself NiranV, which is obviously my name and a try to troll me, therefor i enabled moderation for comments but at the same time i also enabled everyone to write, you wont need an OpenID or Google account anymore, everyone can now comment, that should hopefully help and encourage you to comment more because thats what the comment section is for, those comments must be allowed to be seen however (by me ofcourse)... that should prevent this stupid trolling from happening.


Viewer


I will most likely release updates a bit faster now that some basic stuff is done, the next update will contain mainly UI work and will probably add Pie Menus and those quick Windlight buttons again.


Users


This is a warning to everyone especially those writing stupid comments or starting stupid Group-Chats/IMs with me or my group. I clearly said that this is a beta and a new Viewer but some people dont seem to understand what that means. It means that this Viewer is NOT Nirans Viewer anymore even tho it will contain everything Nirans Viewer did, it is a new Viewer, based uppon Linden Labs Official Viewer (again) and is therefor an (as you call it) empty Viewer, with RLVa ofcourse. Things like "OMG DIS IS SO BAD, I WILL NVR USE DIS SHIET CUZ ITS BAD" will help no one, especially not me. All you manage to do with this is make me angry and sad about wasted time and effort. Not sure what YOU think how a Viewer is made but it definetly doesnt pop up out of nowhere!

Yea i could have just forked Firestorm or Singularity or Catznip or whatever else Viewer to have a fully fledged, complete Viewer with all kinds of stuff but those Viewers are not what i want, i dont want to make a Firestorm², why should i? Why should i include all these Firestorm features? Why having 2 Firestorms? Isnt one burning your ass hot enough? Why GENERALLY doing a fork of another Viewer and only changing a few little things? I dont see a reason here to do so.

So back to the topic, what i want is a custom Viewer that is designed for my needs and ofcourse yours partly, if i wouldnt design it for public use i probably wouldnt even do anything on it anymore because it has everything i want already, everything it has right now is fine enough for me to survive SL for the next few years. Some of you think they have some sort of special previleges to tell me what i have to do and what this Viewer should look like. I tell you something.

F.U.C.K.Y.O.U.

Super-resolution birdy. Just. for. u.

That also counts for people who dont read my blog and/or dont understand what it means when i say:

I HAVE DONE NOTHING ELSE THAN MODDING CHUI IN THIS RELEASE! DONT EXPECT A FINISHED VIEWER!!!!

Want an example of this?

Tomb RaiderWednesday, May 22, 2013
alright I just download and test it out and I am pissed off that I can't find my sky wind lighting setting nor the animations speed tools and second I wont be able to do my sun lighting animation work unless im on Niran's Viewer or if LL make the damn Layouts a Bit Smaller or something (Like Niran's Viewer is set)I will not be using Black Dragon Viewer Ever Never Ever until this is fix or I am Leaveing Second Life For Good Fuck that LL I fucking hate you so much grrrrrrrr Fuck CHUI kiss my ass

What. is. so. hard. to. understand. that. this. is. ONLY. a. modded. CHUI. release. totally. unfinished. and. not. the. final. Viewer. WTF.

No seriously. If i ever see comments like this again, i swear to god, you can kiss my fuzzy ass then.

For all those nice little buddies who continuesly try to help and enhance stuff here and there, those who contribute to the development by reporting bugs, giving constructive critism. THANK YOU. Im sorry for those, because THOSE will be people who will lose their favorite Viewer prematurely because of stupid people.



I hope i made everything crystal clear.

Niran.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Black Dragon - Materials Beta 2.2.2 (3.6.2)

As always, be carefull what you do, clearing Cache and Settings will usually fix MOST problems. Try out Materials which is now officially out!

Time to break a sweat.

She is here, the ultimate graphical NUKE of fancyness.
Just joking.


Theres not much to say, the changes are listed below and the rest... well... just watch the ultimate Trailer of all Trailers:




and...im working on something but i wont say much about it yet, i will come back to it when it is on the best way to get done for real.



Screenshots:
















as always, enjoy,
Niran.

Changelog:

2.2.2 Materials Beta

Fixed Webmedia and Websites using a UI size dependant zoom
Fixed topbar showing its grey background after leaving Mouselook
Fixed random crashs on TP caused by Achievement code
Fixed Viewer/OS hanging/freezing due to total GPU overload caused by sculpt/prim crasher/spammers
Fixed sometimes bugging Web-Profile layouts
Removed the Environment Cube Map in Deferred shiny (restore shiny back to original)
Merged and fully integrated Materials support
Changed Permission icons to Nirans Viewer style
Changed Male/Female icons to Nirans Viewer style
Changed "Set Window Size" floater to Nirans Viewer style
Changed "World Map" floater to Nirans Viewer style
Changed "Shoe" icon to "Shoes" and make it use a "Shoes" icon instead of only one shoe
Changed several basic UI widgets to Nirans Viewer style (temporarly)
Changed floater textures
Changed FXAA's edge handling a bit
Changed Inventory's minimum size
Changed Loginscreen to Nirans Viewer style
Changed to self-build FmodEx package
Changed SSAO default settings to Nirans Viewer's defaults
Changed Shadow default settings to Nirans Viewer's defaults
Changed Shadow look and quality in shaders to Nirans Viewer style
Added Windlight transitions
Added "Refresh" button to UI Preview
Added left/right Shoulder View Camera preset
Added preloading of 3 random loadingscreen images
Added all Nirans Viewer loadingscreen images
Added FPS counter to topbar
Added Draw Distance slider to topbar
Added Show/Hide HUD Attachments option to main menu
Added Several some new options to main Graphics panel for Color Correction and Tone Mapping
Added Exodus's Post Process Stack minus Gamma Correction which is default due to Materials

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Black Dragon 2.2.1

DO NOT change CHUI settings, DO NOT use old settings, DO NOT do anything that breaks this highly fragile CHUI shit.

Blablabla,

CHUI changes, finally some UI changes, skin changes, alot things are still untouched, expect bugs and broken UI.

Most importantly: ITS NOT YET DONE.

there, have a pic of the current UI.


here, take the download and stop asking me for an update ok? this thing is so up to date that it has changes i havnt even yet written down nor commited to my repository because im waiting for other things to be finished first so i can wrap them up nicely.