New Firestorm Update Released

 

A few days ago on Tuesday March 22, Jessica Lyon of Team Firestorm announced the release of their latest version on their blog: 6.5.3.65658. She would also announce it in their inworld group.

A new update with some GAME CHANGING FEATURES!
Grab it before the servers cook!

Firestorm 6.5.3.65658 is finally in the wind! Wow—it’s been a struggle to get this one out, folks. But the wait is worth it, as this release comes with a couple of groundbreaking new features we’re really excited about. It also brings us to parity with LL’s 6.5.2, quite a jump from our last release, which was AGES ago. This is a major update.

As stated, this latest update brings Firestorm up to parity with Linden Lab's latest viewer, and there's two notable new features. One is the option to take 360 Snapshots, which Marcel Mosswood wrote about last month when it was in a test viewer. 

Another noted feature is the Performance Floater and Autotune, which can help in telling you what around you is causing the most lag.

The Performance Floater shows you in real-time what parts of the scene are taking the most time and slowing down your graphics (lag). In particular, this first release focuses on avatars and allows you to see which avatars are truly lagging you, and also allows you to examine your own attachments to see how they perform.

The FS Performance Floater is loosely based upon a project viewer from LL, released last June. We have completely revised the metrics behind the floater to make sure that it offers a realistic account of the rendering costs that you personally observe.

Autotune. This is the first look at this new feature. Wholly developed by Beq Janus, Autotune allows the viewer to automatically manage some of your graphics settings in order to give you the performance level that you request, and keep you there. It’s like autopilot for lag! You set the target FPS (frames per second) you want, and Autotune will do its best to keep you there by dynamically adjusting your settings from scene to scene! However, it cannot work miracles, if your computer is ancient—it can only do so much.

When TPing to a social island with a number of avatars most, of the viewer's time was spent drawing them. Clicking on avatars nearby will show how much processing time is spent on each. It also shows your avatar complexity in detail, how much time the avatar's parts are needing to render, It shows the impact of any HUDs on you, and a shortcut to looking at and edjusting your graphics settings.

There are known issues with the Mac and Linnux versions of the viewer. Also, the "Starlight Skins," an appearance option for Firestorm viewers (SL wiki link) will soon no longer be supported. 

As per their deal with Linden Lab, Firestorm 6.4.12.62831 will be blocked from accessing the Grid in three weeks.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

360° Snapshot At Firestorm Viewer

 

Last September, Linden Lab rolled out Project 360, a feature available on a preview viewer that allowed users to take screenshots that covered "360 degrees in all three dimensions, allowing you to see everything both above and below your avatar as well, as though the image is projected on the inside of a sphere." In January, it became an option in the official Linden Viewer. Now, Firestorm is working to make use of the feature. Marcel Mosswood took a look at the feature in a Firestorm preview viewer. So what did she think?
 
Read Marcel's review in Design.
 

The 360 Degree Snapshot Viewer

 

For those of you looking for pictures that cover every angle from one's position, there's a new viewer by Linden Lab: Project 360 Capture. Made available on Friday September 3, it was mentioned in the Second Life Tools and Technology blog on Tuesday September 7.

You can now take a 360-degree snapshot of a location in Second Life. Better than a simple panoramic image, the 360 snapshot covers 360 degrees in all three dimensions, allowing you to see everything both above and below your avatar as well, as though the image is projected on the inside of a sphere.

To get the viewer, download it here. As it's a Linden viewer, some used to Firestorm may have a little difficulty. To check out the special feature, click on "World" at the top and select "360 snapshot" underneath regular snapshots (one can also press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S). Upon selecting this option, you get a preview image. You have options to increase the quality of the image, and to hide any avatars within view (notably your own), then press "Create 360 image." One can click and hold on the image with the cursor, and move it around. Pressing "Save as" will create a panoramic image.

Loaded on some social media pages and websites, people may be able to interact with the image by clicking, holding, and moving around. This includes Flickr, which Alexa Linden loaded some images on.

The blog page did mention a few known issues, such as items missing from the snapshot (reccomended that one pan around and give things time to rezz), older and less powerful graphics cards may cause corrupted issues, low graphics settings in Preferences may result in a less satisfactory picture than desires. and higher detailed pictures may take a while for the viewer to make.

To check out the Linden blog page, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Reader Submitted: SL Video: "A Blake Sea 360 in Second Life (built by LDPW)"

 

 (Click here if the video fails to play)

 From Erik Mondrain on March 22, "As yet another experiment in virtual cinematography (and as a nice way to relax), here is a leisurely, 360-degree panning shot that I did while floating in Second Life's Blake Sea—with my draw distance cranked up to 600 meters. The EEP Sky preset that I used while filming was [TOR] HORROR - Bloody moon. I also tweaked things a bit in my video editor, mainly in order to reduce color banding and to make the sky feel a little more vibrant, and a little less grim, than the name of that aforementioned preset would suggest. Located in Blake Sea - Hawser: (169/228/21). For more info about the LDPW (Linden Department of Public Works) and about the Blake Sea, check out the description for "escape," the second video in my MFA Thesis series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMdXU...​ My fox avatar was designed by Liam Roark of Luskwood (https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Luskwood​) and is sold by Luskwood Creatures.​ And it floats thanks to Conrad Aluveaux's indispensable Swimmer HUD.  Filmed on Linux with the Firestorm Viewer and SimpleScreenRecorder and using a SpaceNavigator 3D Mouse. Edited with Kdenlive."