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
Keep up the great work :-) Downloading this once I actually wake up, hehe!
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to have the option to eventually re-dock IMs to CHUI floater as in official viewer? And yo have instead the local chat bar as in your previous viewer?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Everything is possibly possible but i wont do this anymore. Any kind of modification to the current CHUI system would be wasted.
DeleteYour mod of the original CHUI is even worst than the original. It is absolutely horrible. I didn't think it was possible to do something worst than LL CHUI but, sorry if I say, you had been able to do it.
DeleteThe viewer is good, also if actually it is just a fork of LL one, but considering what you made with the previous version i think you can do good things, and you know i use it since the beginning of NiranViewer.
But honestly, your CHUI version has no-sense (for me of course): it has the worst side of both world: not a real tabbed messaging, not CHUI, not separate floaters.... seriously, I think you may revert it to something somehow "old style" (I mean chicklets and separate floats for each IM removing the useless CHUI main floater) or (maybe better because I think LL will keep CHUI) adopt LL CHUI with eventually detachable IM windows (as it actually does, but making them persisten on the screen when the main CHUI floater is hidden).
Honestly CHUI is not that bad because it is absolutely the same messaging system used in EVERY MMORPG games. They have all the messages in a single floater, tabbed (Local, Area, General, Friends, Wishpers and so on).
I just think it needs a slider on the top to make it transparent on the run and the possibility to keep important converstaion always on top detaching them from the main window.
And moreover LL made it even better than normal MMORPG messaging system because you can really quickly add people to conferences and select a single user from the local chat/conference to start a private IM thanks to the collapsble users tree. I think CHUI is a very good messaging system and I wonder why you, always a step ahead, didn't realize it.
Strange.
Second Life is an extremly complex and big application which i think deserves a simple and easy, screenspace saving and functional Chat System. A Chat System like any other in any other MMORPG is the most wrong way you can go here. Second Life is not just "another" MMORPG, it is a special case on its own. It needs a special Chat System. Seperated IM in V2 was exactly that. TYI i play alot MMORPGs and alot of Games, all of them with sometimes completely different UI's and the worst thing i always see is the Chat System in MMORPGs. I avoid using it at any cost in EVERY MMORPG. I never pay attention to it. I never really use it other than if i have to and i always wish for an option to hide it or close it completely because i want to enjoy everything non-chat related, in other words, the Game.
DeleteCHUI is a bad attempt at redesigning the Chat System by combining what MMORPGs do and what Viewer 1 did previously and what V2/3 did. Taking the worst of them all. Tabbed IMs. No Chiclets. No Autohiding Chats. Screenspace wastage level Linden. Combined IM/Local. Lots of misbehaving things like Local Chat opens Conversations and vise versa. Tons of options but none to force seperated, autohiding, chiclet-using IM like before + the new options of adding people etc.
I hate tabbed IM. I hated it in V1. I hated it in V2. I hated it in V3. I still hate it in CHUI.
I've decided to do some more work on CHUI in future even tho it would be all wasted time and effort as i will completely replace CHUI with the old system anyway.
I'm sorry that my half-assed, emergency re-design of CHUI doesnt work for you, but it does for me and thats the only important thing. I need to work with it. If i had to use the normal CHUI every day in my own Viewer, i would quickly start becoming annoyed by Chats and IMs, ignoring them and finally getting annoyed by the Viewer itself forcing me to use another Viewer. Explain to me how i should continue a Viewer i dont even want to use?
DeleteBut the worst thing is that i totally agree with you, believe me. Probably i (as usual) had not been to explain what i think. I meant o say, we had a (quite) good messaging system, now we have CHUI, but now what can we do?
DeleteIf you could really revert it to the previous version was ok. But that piece of CHUI still remaining there on the screen is bad. At least you may try to make it as much transparent as you can, in the background and borders to seem a group of chicklets.
Well, we will see how your viewer will go to be. Sooner or later you will find something good to fix that stuff.
I have discovered one thing, which only becomes an issue when a sim is restarted (usually by LL) and doesn't come back up.
ReplyDeleteI selected for the viewer to show login location, which works in Niran's, so that I could get back in, but it doesn't show up a new box, thus currently I can't get back into SL because I can't log into a different region. (Please do NOT suggest that I set it to "My home" because that is where I was when the region got restarted, so my last location & my home are both the same).
Anyways, not seeing anything yet, I will check out the new stuff when I return home, since my PC is better there.
Keep up the good work Niran.
Niran, the Black Dragon topbar texture doesn't extend the full width of the screen, it's cut-off after the "search" box when BD is run at higher resolutions than 1280x720. Can you make an amended .xml file available to correct this little issue?
ReplyDeleteThere is no way to really fix this as the topbar background texture is a fixed size (1920x50) and is also scaled exactly this size in the Viewer, all Resolutions lower than 1920x1080 should be totally fine, where 1920x1080 would be the absolute optimum where the texture reaches its end at the end of your screen, all resolutions with a higher width than 1920 however wont work and will make the topbar beeing cutoff.
DeleteNote that my Snapshots are all taken in 1920x1058 (22px Windows bar) and my topbar background scales just fine. I did change the topbar texture this release, previously it resized about 300-400 pixel (about the width of the whole statusbar stuff until the navigationbar dropdown button) beyond my screen which are 300-400 pixel too much, making the topbar look slightly stretched. The only way i can think of to make the topbar texture extend "theoretically" endlessly without stretching it and still having the dark corners (which show that this is the end of the topbar) would be seperating the dark corners into a seperate texture which is resized with the Viewer Window and putting the hexagon background texture as repeatable texture below it, but that would be hacky and unnecessary possible ressource wasting.
DeleteThat's totally bizarre, I am running Windows @ 1920x1080 standard resolution so my actual display size would be identical. Previous versions worked fine the top bar extended across the screen so the Linden balance, volume settings etc had the black dragon texture behind them, this release the texture for the black dragon stops just after the "quick search bar". Very strange. I have done a completely clean install, removed all old releases of BD and deleted all settings in appdata etc.
DeleteI will investigate that later and do a test run with 1.0 UI size and default settings.
DeleteFirst of all, I wanna thank you for your hard work.
ReplyDeleteIn this release, I'm having a really weird problem. Any AV that has more than 21 objects (Including my own), the moment you add the object number 22 it disappears from the screen, in the case of my AV even the HUDs disappear from the screen.
Because of this I cannot use or see any big AV like the 1st Act Werewolf.
Also I wanna confirm the topbar texture bug, since I also have it.
'As far as i understand this means translated in common language:
ReplyDelete"Tone Mapping is a Post Process Effect that aims at 'equalizing' or 'normalising' colors to a good medium"'
"High Dynamic Range" images described by the Wikipedia statement often look more colourful with lots of high contrast bringing things into sharper relief. They're describing the sort of tone mapping I was talking to you about on SLU a while back.
http://bartelme.at/journal/archive/hdr_tutorial
My Tone Mapping defaults aim at combining both the "normalising" one that makes color transitions smoother and the HDR-like one that makes the picture look more colorfull and with more contrast. You cannot perfectly blend both, atleast not without making Tone Mapping look either A: super weird OR B: like without Tone Mapping (which would somehow defeat the purpose of having an additional little post process step)
DeleteI hope to see my avatar and my hud with this update, otherwise I will continue to use Niran Viewer
ReplyDeleteYou wont. I'm not going to change it anymore. This is considered a anti-grief mechanism and i'm probably planning on making it even more strict (more stuff/avatars will become invisible) it will mostly just affect super duper mega attachments that will kill your framerate insanely fast but as you say it also affects Avatars that go way over the maximum of what an Avatar should have. That means the Avatar or its attachments are simply too complex and/or not optimized for performance, that again means that they are somewhat low quality. It should also make you re-think your Avatar/Outfit if its causing your own Avatar and HUD to vanish, this is a bad sign of "I'm using way too much ressources".
DeleteIt would be much better if you would just ask on how to disable it. It is a normal option like any other too and can just be customised as any other, its just not yet in the Preferences panel because i havnt finished it yet. Apart from that, my defaults are just defaults i think are good for me, if you dont like them, you can change them at any time, thats what Preferences and Debug Settings is for.
DeleteThe Debug option you are searching for is called:
RenderAutoMuteSurfaceAreaLimit
and it is set to 200, setting it to 0 will fix your little problem.
Next time you should be a bit more thankfull that i care about everyones performance, atleast a bit but as said previously in my ranting posts it seems to be too much im wanting here.
Anyway, you are just another one i wont help personally anymore in future.
Even worse, you dont realise that i dont change this setting for fun as it can cause alot of trouble like you have, thats obviously the trade-off. Im trying to prevent me and my users from running into the same problems again i had before i set this default. People who use objects/avatars that have about 200m+ Surface Area which will instantly kill your Drivers or in worst case even your Windows. This happened to me, someone very unsuspicious looking caused my Windows to lock up completely, 6 times in a row due to total GPU overload. After using this auto mute function i asked the people around and they told me that someone is using a graphics crasher around here, so everyone ran on super low with avatar impostors on and nearly everyone and everything muted to prevent this from happening. I did some research to find out who did it and measured the default with him, i also took some feedback about this feature and 200m² seems to be the best win situation as no normal avatar will ever go over 120m² leaving all normal people alone but still offering the protection against those crashers.
DeleteYou know what? honestly, most users are either too stupid, dont even know about it or just dont want to fiddle with such very explosive options and i just took over this part like many other parts and made you a default that works for nearly everyone, everywhere, all you can say about this is just utter bullshit, dumping down my work, this is exactly the reason im not motivated anymore to do anything for anyone, not even myself.
I spend the last 2 weeks doing absolutely nothing, im not even sure anymore if i really want to update again as it is just no fun anymore.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI did a very long post but I'll shorten it here.
DeleteGentle you are a selfish self centered full of yourself person who if you are so much better than anyone else ought to make their own viewer and leave everyone else alone.
You didn't offer constructive criticism, or help, you came on here ranting on how the viewer doesn't work for you, whilst going on about yourself, and as your own post states you fixed the problem, so your rants were completely un-necessary.
If indeed Niran decides to quit altogether it is cause of folks like YOU. You need to accept that others use these clients, and there are many different levels of knowledge and PC's out there that thankfully Niran is trying to cater for.
Anyway once again I hope that Niran will find the motivation deep down to carry on, but I am beginning to see that there is less and less chance of this happening each time someone like Gentle comes along with their claims of "help" and "constructive criticism", neither of which they are capable of.
Would point out many things but I dislike flaming at the best of times.
DeleteKeep on going Niran, and don't like people get you down.
I won't bother to respond to the above, since it just becomes a flame, which I dislike at the best of times, however I will note that should I receive any threat again, it will be reported.
DeleteKeep it going Niran and don't let people drag you down. If you still quit then thank you for all the good work you've done, I am pretty sure that more people like your viewer than don't.
"Who was it that pointed out to Niran how to properly address Linden Labs and use the PJIRA process? You?"
DeleteNot you. It was Oz. Several times.
"Who got the FS/Phoneix "robots" to stop tearing Niran apart in this very blog with a simple, single post? You?"
Not you either. They stopped themself, they were never tearing me apart just telling me their opinion on my opinion on their Viewer and mistakes.
"Who has been one of the first to congratulate Niran on his labors in this very Blog when a release was dead, spot on lovely? Was it you again?"
Not you either... Angel was one of the first to do so.
"Whom is it that will raise an alarm of CAUTION when a baaaaad mistake is made that impeded on BASIC viewer functionality, and detracts from it? You, again?"
You do realise that i totally ignore them? My Viewer. I have to like it because i have to use it.
"No. I will rest on my past history and efforts. Niran quits development for Niran's reason. *I* am the EXCUSE he was looking for, when I did not just jump up immediately and say, "You made a perfect viewer, let me shower you with cudos and cuddles..." "
Your past history and efforts as far as i see where normal bug reports and/or complains about default setting i set. Nothing really special considered that everyone basically makes a bug report by saying "oh it crashes when i right click stuff". You are not THE excuse i was looking for you are ONE of those people that you would call an excuse. One of the main "excuses" i want to stop are people who simply dont realise that this is a free Project, no one has to pay for it to happen, its made in my free time mainly for personal use, i share it because i think people should have a chance to see what i am seeing, apart from that people would whine and ask for this Viewer when i post snapshots. Thing is my patience has reached a 0 level, continueing this Viewer is more stress, saddening and annoying that fun. Thats the point at which i stop working.
"Now, shall I continue with the litany of problems, errors and broken SIM <-> client protocols present when trying to strangle the CHUI in this release along with the solutions - or, let it die? Niran needs help, I am willing to give it - or was."
The help i need? 404.
"Go f*ck yourself too, Angel. I will not kiss yours or Niran's arse on demand. Earn it. Yes, I can post about me, as I only know about ME. Pray I do not get to know about YOU. :D"
I dont want anyone to kiss my ass, just touch my virtual boobies!
A shame that such a great viewer could stop development.
DeleteAnyway, thanks for your efforts, this was my favorite viewer, and I was really looking forward to a full version of Black Dragon...
Gentle, you simply dont realise that this is an unfinished settings and all those options will be available sooner or later via Preferences just like in Nirans Viewer, apart from that, the whole Viewer is Rocket Science itself, i saw so many people fail on simple things in Viewers and not just my own, throw words like "Deferred Rendering" or SSAO at them and they are confused already, most people dont even know the difference between Deferred Rendering and non-Deferred Rendering.
DeleteShiki, this Viewer is not yet stopping development. Not yet. Theres still more than half a year of stressfull UI/Code designing, fixing and development ahead, if nothing too bad happens.
DeleteHow come whenever I want to pick up a mesh object, my viewer crashes instantly?
ReplyDeleteTook this version out for a test drive... very nice! I'll keep checking back.
ReplyDeleteHey! Thank you for use your time to create a great viewer for us all!
ReplyDeleteI just downloaded the black dragon and I miss the side bar that had SSAO config and DOF.
Is there a way to make it appear again?
I hit F1, to machinima side bar and it doesn't appear.
Thank you again for your hardwork :D
I am not able to get search to work on world map.
ReplyDeletecan someone help me - i use map search regularly and now i can't get it to work. Am i settign something wrong?
DeleteI will check all this when im back from my "vacation" this weekend.
DeleteNiran can you add materials to the nirans viewer as a last update meanwhile this one catch up with nirans features or until the machinima menu is like nirans?
ReplyDeleteNo, adding Materrials without CHUI would be a huge amount of work, picking out either all CHUI or Materials patches and applying/removing them, not to mention that such things are often doomed to fail when i do them.
DeleteHey I was one of earliest to download your newest Dragon.. I just want to tell ya,, I see the progress and look forward to each new release, anticpating each new developement and additional capabilities. Thanks again for all the effort over the years u have devoted to enhancing, as only u have done, to create a portal into this virtual world that rivals no one,and seems to infuriate the ppl with the most to lose, imagine what they would bitch at if you didn't do this.. Keep up the good work, pls don't let the distractions keep you from your masterpiece..
ReplyDeletei am not able to rename photos or textures in my inventory
ReplyDeleteI see one comment in regards, but I as well for the life of me cannot get the machinima side bar to show, F1 nor the menu option bring it out. also i am not liking the chat windows here compared to nirans, would liek for local chat to remain open if i am doing an IM or vice versa, sometimes i have an active convo going in local then get an IM, i hate to miss out on the conversation because I have IMs to tend to.
ReplyDeleteThats because it is not yet implemented.
DeleteOMG, this is awesome. lots better. performance, better better better...
ReplyDeleteany chance for a x64 bit version? or would that add any advantages to speak of?
ReplyDeleteIt is a 64bit version already, however, 64bit in SL just means it can use more memory than usual. A real 64bit version would require the whole Viewer to be rewritten from scratch to make the absolute best usage of it everywhere.
Deleteahh alrighty... any chance of this happening in the future? just curious. the current release is so much better already though crashy at times. its nearly double the frame rate of the last release on my system. i hope your not still planning on abandoning the project. we need your taste for fanciness!
DeletePlease for mac!!! ii loooove this viewer
ReplyDeleteNo Mac/Linux Versions from me. Ever. I may constantly break them, its annoying enough to keep it running on Windows at times.
DeleteAlways LOVED your viewer even since it was Niran's Viewer though I was wondering if you could add all the windlight settings from the old Niran's into Black Dragon? That would be awesome :) Cause when I first tried out Black Dragon, It showed the SL V3 basic ones and I loved the ones the old Niran's had than the basics. Thanks Niran and keep up the awesome work! Much catnip love to ya :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome work as always Niran! :) Though I wonder if you will be implementing ALL of the windlight settings from your old Niran's Viewer cause they were awesome and I love to see them in Black Dragon! Keep up the awesome work and much catnip love to ya!
ReplyDeleteBlack Dragon is a new viewer, but from what I have seen Niran say, a lot of the stuff from Niran's will be in Black Dragon, once it's been redone, etc etc, it's just a matter of time and patience while Niran works the magic :)
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