Monthly Archives: September 2011

Workaround for some cases of bad performance on Windows

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If you are experiencing worse frame rates than usual with the Dolphin Viewer 3 on Windows, it may help to set the debug setting “CurlUseMultipleThreads” to true. Debug settings are in the Advanced menu, which you might have to enable first – to do that, go to Preferences->Advanced.

In the next release this will be set as the default.

 

Dolphin Viewer 3 – 3.0.7.20437

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Another update for the Dolphin Viewer 3: 3.0.7.20437.

New in this version:

  • derendering of objects and avatars to make them invisible
    (good for pictures)

To derender someone/something, right-click on the avatar or object, the menu option is called “derender”. For objects it’s in the “Manage” submenu.

Please note, once you leave the sim and come back, the avatar or object will be visible again.

Downloads are on the download page.

Dolphin Viewer 3 – 3.0.6.20435

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The newest version of the Dolphin Viewer 3 is out.

New in 3.0.6.20435:

  • Area Search (in the ‘World’ menu)

The downloads are on the download page as always.

UPDATE: There’s the possibility that the windows installer triggers that “Generic malware where we don’t exactly know what it actually is” alert from Avira Antivirus again.

Let me just point out that neither avg nor f-prot have anything to complain about the file.

Known issues with Dolphin Viewer 3

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I have to report three bugs in Dolphin Viewer 3.

  1. The performance on Windows can be abysmally slow, i.e. one third of what you’re used to (inherited from original 3.0 code).
  2. Replacing a saved outfit that contains more than one of any one wearable type (two or more tattoo layers) does not take off all of those layers (e.g. one tattoo stays behind but does not show in “Current Outfit”)
    (reproduces in original RLV 2.7).
  3. Sending teleport offers to more than one person through selecting them on your friends list makes the viewer crash (Reproduces in original RLV 2.7)

Be assured that 2. and 3. are being worked on. Number 1. is in the hand of Linden Labs.

What’s even worse is that 3. is also present in Dolphin Viewer 2 … and because I don’t have another spare PC I can’t maintain DV2 anymore, unless someone makes it build ok on Visual Studio 2010.

Dolphin Viewer 3 – 3.0.5.20427

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Here’s a new Dolphin Viewer 3.

New in this release:

  • Dolphin Viewer 3 now defaults to its own separate cache folder (users of previous versions need to reset the cache location once this version is installed, unless you already set it to its own location)
  • Restrained Love check box in preferences renamed to RLV to make it more consistent with all other RLV options
  • Chat bar hovertip now properly mentions whispering by using shift-enter
  • Linux build works for users of older linux distributions

The downloads are on the download page as usual.

Dolphin Viewer 3 Windows Installer

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I received a single user report that Avira anti-virus found a virus in DolphinViewer3-i686-Windows-3.0.3.20418.exe.

After getting that report, I ran F-Prot, AVG, and ClamAV over the setup file, as well AVG and ClamAV across my whole build system, and they all found nothing.

Avira, on the other hand, has been known “somewhat prone to false positives”.

So there is no virus in there.

UPDATE:

The ‘virus’ that Avira is detecting in the Dolphin Viewer 3 installer is “ADWARE/Adware.Gen“.

Please note this section in the description of this ‘so-called’ virus:

A generic detection routine designed to detect common family characteristics shared in several variants.
This special detection routine was developed in order to detect unknown variants and will be enhanced continuously.

To me that translates to “We don’t really know what is going on there.”

I’ll send the installer to Avira to have it analyzed and properly scanned now.

UPDATE 2:

I’m getting word that other people have similar false positives with Firestorm, and the original Linden Labs viewers right now. It seems that there is something in the original code that upsets virus scanners.

A new hope: Dolphin Viewer 3 with Mesh

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When I first started playing around with mesh and the 3.0 series of Linden Labs’ original viewers, I came across some full-body human mesh avies. As some of you might have realized by now, such full-body human body meshes work only with a body shape close to the one the creator was using, so those avies made me think of ‘attack of the clones’. That in turn made me think of LucasArts™. And as you all know, blender, one of the tools used to create mesh objects, was originally made to create professional computer animations …

So, without further ado, I present:

Dolphin Viewer 3 – A New Hope

Dolphin Viewer 3 – 3.0.3.20418 is out, and includes:

  • all new goodies from Linden Labs up to their internal version 3.0.3:

    • mesh
    • depth of field (switch it on/off in Prefs/Graphics/Advanced)
    • avatar body physics
    • prim sizes up to 64 meters
    • lots of improvements in the Build tool (details below)
    • higher maximum cache size (up to 9984 Mb)
    • increased maximum setting for Level of Detail (up to 8 )
    • the Minimap in the “People near me” tab in the sidebar is back in and can be switched off and resized
    • enhanced parcel privacy, a check box in About Land/Options. When switched off, avatars outside the parcel of land cannot see or chat with avatars on the land
  • Marine Kelley’s Restrained Love v2.07.03.03
  • all my own previous additions from Dolphin Viewer 2, with the exception of Qarl Fizz’ “select Linden plants” patch, which does not work with the mesh engine

Improved build tools (my anal wife adores me for these):

  • You can perform simple mathematics in the spinner controls in the Build tool’s Object tab (numeric fields in Position, Size, Rotation). For example, to double the length of a prim along the y axis you enter sy*2 in the y-size field. The other “variables” are px/py/pz for position, sx,sy,sz for size, rx,ry,rz for rotation.
  • A new button in the Build tool is present, so that creators can create a sculpted prim directly instead of first creating a box and then changing it to a sculpt.
  • the maximum number of repeats for textures has been set to 256
  • the maximum size for hollow has been increased to 99.99% from 95%
  • more precision (4 decimals) in the spinner controls in the Build tool, together with a way to increase and decrease the single digits with your keyboard:
    Click into one of the numeric fields for Position, Size or Rotation. Then use the cursor up and cursor down keys to increase or decrease the value. You’ll notice that the cursor keys change the second digit after the decimal point. But if you use one of the modifier keys you’ll change the first, third, or fourth digit instead, with the following key combinations
    alt-up / alt-down: +/- 0.1
    up / down: +/- 0.01
    ctrl-up / ctrl-down: +/- 0.001
    shift-up / shift-down: +/- 0.0001

Like any other ‘brand new thing’, there are a few known issues:

  • Uploading mesh does not work – in fact it will make you crash. For now, use the official Linden Labs viewer to upload your mesh model. There is, as of today, no open-source library for mesh physics, which is needed to be able to upload mesh. Several people are working on a solution, and believe me, I’m monitoring the pertinent JIRA entries quite closely.
  • If you crash in Dolphin Viewer 3, and get the message ‘You have been logged out of Second Life because you have been logging in from a different region’ when you try to log back in, use a non-mesh viwer to do so.  After a successful log-in with a non-mesh viewer, you can use Dolphin Viewer 3 again. This issue is also present in the original viewer from Linden Labs, and to my knowledge is being worked on.
  • Finally, any mesh-enabled viewer needs somewhat more memory than a non-mesh viewer. You might experience more frequent crashes because of that. I’m about to invest in some memory, and you may wish to also.

I guess all that is left to mention is the usual: Find the downloads on the download page.