The Firestorm team has already added some OpenSim-friendly features to their viewer, and opened an office on OSgrid, the largest grid on the OpenSim platform. Instead, Kitely now has Firestorm as its recommended viewer, and eight other viewers, including Imprudence, as possible alternatives. Kitely, for example, used to allow the use of the official Second Life viewer as one of the viewers that could be used to access their grid through the proprietary Kitely plugin. ![]() Many grids reacted immediately, no longer recommending the use of the official Second Life viewer to their residents. As a result, users who want to see meshes and media-on-a-prim in OpenSim can’t use the Second Life viewer anymore. Meanwhile, Second Life cut off OpenSim access via its official viewer in August. The Firestorm team opted for option number four, and decided to fork their viewer code. Viewers had the option of not adding the new code, of focusing exclusively on Second Life, focusing just on OpenSim, or releasing two versions of their viewer - one for OpenSim and one for Second Life. Last spring, Linden Lab announced a new licensing policy, in which viewer developers who wanted the cool new pathfinding code from Havoc would have to drop support for OpenSim. Sure, there are still developers who know their way around Imprudence but those guys are getting harder and harder to find. Plus, the fact that developers are actively working on the viewer means that there’s a possibility of hiring them to do custom work if you need to, for a company, school, or commercial grid. After all, why bother contributing code to a dead project, where your fix will never see the light of day? The fact that new updates of Firestorm come out regularly inspires other developers to find and fix bugs, and to add new features. If you to go the viewer’s official website you’ll see regular software updates and news posts.īy comparison, the last stable release of Imprudence came out in the fall of 2010, and the last beta release in the fall of 2011.Īctivity is contagious. Want more details? Just check out the change log from their August update. So, over time, you might be missing out on some functionality.Īnd there are some more features in the latest viewers, aimed at improving the quality of the experience, stability, speed - by sticking with an older viewer, you’re missing out on all the good stuff that’s coming along. Using media-on-a-prim in my OpenSim virtual office.Īgain, even if you personally don’t use media-on-a-prim, it’s just too nice a feature for other people to ignore. I can see my email inbox, status indicators for all the Hyperica gates, latest visitor reports, and all other data I need to work in-world. I use media-on-a-prim to set up a virtual control room in my company office. For example, you could put a link to a Webpage on any face of a prim, to create easy-to-update virtual books, role playing guides, animated talking heads, interactive maps… there are a lot of possibilities there that haven’t yet been explored. ![]() And you could use it more creatively, as well. You could play videos, show slides, collaboratively edit Google Spreadsheets or text documents, sell stuff directly from your Website. It allows folks to put any Website on any surface. Which could get awkward.įinally, my favorite feature, media-on-a-prim. Plus, if someone is wearing mesh clothing, you don’t have to see them naked. Even if you never plan to upload a mesh object, it’s good to be able to see the mesh objects that other people have uploaded. ![]() I never use the camera view button, so I get rid of it, but I like having the inventory, map, and outfits button on the right side of the screen, so that’s where I put them. For example, you can move buttons around to where you want them on the screen. It can take a little time to get used to the new interface, but the biggest problems people had with it when it first came out have been fixed, and it’s now pretty usable. It’s based on the V3 Second Life viewer, which means it supports mesh and media-on-a-prim, modern outfits, the new floating menus - all the latest bells and whistles. I recently switched, and I’ve been happy with the experience. It took a little fiddling to get it to log into OpenSim grids, but media-on-a-prim was important to me, so it was worth it.īut my recommendation is that grids consider switching their recommended viewers to Firestorm, instead. Then, because I wanted mesh and media-on-a-prim, I started using the official Second Life viewer. Today, Imprudence is still the recommended viewer on many grids, including OSgrid. Like many folks, I started out in OpenSim using Hippo, then graduated to Imprudence when Hippo was no longer supported. How to set up your new mobile VR viewer.
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