Thursday, August 11, 2011

Viewers, Drivers & Weird Sh*t in Second Life

Alpha Point  moderate (in Beta Viewer)

I hadn't taken any photographs for a few days and I was going through withdrawal.  :)  So I went inworld to go exploring but wound up spending my time looking at the screen quizically (to be honest confusion is one of my usual states).  The graphics seemed to have changed - things looked clearer, sharper and better.

I've made two changes since my last visit - I downloaded the latest nVidia driver and I was using the newest (non-mesh) beta viewer.  So I went to Alpha Point, took a photo and then switched to a production viewer to see if there was a difference.  The same settings are used on both and I tried to get the same angle/distance, but I see a difference (thousands might not,  but I do) and not just because the particles never did resolve themselves in the production version.  I think the change is the viewer.

Alpha Point  moderate (in Production Viewer)

There is some weird sh*t happening though.  I found myself constantly adjusting the angle/distance from my avatar for my standard view.  I'll have to go into an older version and note the settings because they've changed in the Beta and I can't seem to adjust them properly or get them to stay where I want them.

There is also an odd random perspective issue.  This next photo is of the stage that Kev Sweetwater built us for the Burn2 Community Day.

Burning Man- Silver Seed  moderate

This photo is what the same structure looked like as I tried to maneuver my avatar perspective around.  Um ......well it could be the video card ..... maybe.

Burning Man- Silver Seed  moderate

Speaking of the Burn2 Community Day - we had a lot of fun.  Great music, wonderful people and lots of laughter.  I was thrilled to discover that jjccc coronet had made a machinima of the party - so here's an artist's view of the great stage, the rides and the eclectic mix of residents who came out to the playa.

I'm going back inworld to experiment some more. :)




5 comments:

~Diana said...

I've noticed some strange things with the camera between V2, Firestorm, and the newest Phoenix within the last few days. I have an ATI Radeon HD card and things seem to run the spectrum from bizarre angles to less precision in controlling the camera, to seeing prim attachments standing out from avatars. Seems like just when we get the graphic sh*t together, they move the sh*t. =(

Honour McMillan said...

@Di Somewhere in a dark room is a scruffy techie muttering the words "Complacency is the enemy of innovation." The little bugger :)

~Diana said...

I say we hunt him down and beat him till there's nothing left but sneakers and glasses =)

Uccie Poultry said...

i wonder how much the server updates affect resolution and camera controls. Without upgrading viewers or updating drivers I see similar changes ... particularly in camera controls. At first I thought it was the upgrade to Apple's Lion OS and its mouse quirks, but then some regions were rolled back to a previous server and the changes I'd noticed were gone.

Different viewers do, indeed, give different results. Lately I've been running Kirstens "8" on my Mac and comfortably use Ultra graphics with 2x and even 4x anti-alaising active without serious lag. The official viewer is not compatible with the Lion OS so it misbehaves, but it is as laggy as the current firestorm for me and both have a reduction in picture quality compared to Kirstens.

Soon, Kirstens will be updated to a new version and I wonder what changes I'll see in my pictures.

Honour McMillan said...

@Uccie Isn't it wonderful how we get a sense of adventure through just logging on? :)