Blog Archives
New Zen Viewer added to Third Party Viewer list
It seems like the Zen Viewer has been officially been added to the Third Party Viewer Directory this week. I have not heard of this viewer until now and it excites me when new viewers come along for Second Life. You can download this viewer either on Zena Juran download page or via the SL wiki page. Zen Viewer is only for Windows!
The Zen Viewer is a v3 viewer based on the viewer-development Snowstorm. It contains all the latest shines and fixes plus a consolidation of unique features specific to content creation. Includes the original Pie Menu!
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Zen
Impressive features included in the Zen Viewer…
- Mesh Upload.
- Qarl’s Rigged Mesh Deformer – Alpha.
- The Original Pie Menu.
- Enhanced Build Tools.
- Toggle Notifications Top/Bottom Screen.
- Clientside Animation Overrider (AO).
- Clientside Particles Editor.
- Local Sculpt and Texture Browsing.
- Temp Sculpt and Texture Uploads.
- Save and Load Scripts Locally.
- Qarl’s Align Tool.
- Fetch Inventory at Login.
- Resized View/Cam Controls Floater.
- Separate UserData and Cache Folders.
- Draw Distance Slider in Status Bar.
- TP Destination Beacon Disable.
- Copy UUID on Right-click.
- Texture Refresh.
- Derender.
- Pos. & Rot. Spinners for Attachments Enabled.
- Copy/Paste Object Params.
- Copy/Paste Texture Params.
- Zoom Min. Distance Disable.
- Inventory Hovertips Disable.
- Area Object Search.
- Sound Explorer.
- Move Orphaned System Folders for Deletion.
- Adjustable Region Restart Timer.
- UI Skinning.
- Full Screen Toggle.
- Invisiprim Support in Deferred Rendering.
Also performance enhancements have been added in the Zen Viewer…
- Kirsten’s OpenJPEG Library.
- NickyD’s HACD Mesh Decomposition.
- Large Address Aware.
- Graded Shadows Support.
If you have tried this viewer then feel free to share your experiences via comments below. I will be using this viewer during the next few weeks and will be sharing my experience soon. Thanks! 
Big SL News Stories of 2011
- Mesh – The rollout and launch of Mesh was the most talked during 2011. Mesh went live across the grid on 23rd August 2011.
- Meeroos - Meeroos attack from unidentified griefers which caused alot of controversy and anger from the SL community.
- RedZone - This was big news when RedZone HUD revealed alt accounts, zf Redzone security was breached and the ban of zFire Xue from Second Life.
- Viewer 3 – Launched on 8th November – this was a major revamp of the user interface. V3 came with customizable toolbars, buttons, no sidebar and merger of Basic and Advanced modes.
- 42 groups limit - This was really good news when the lab officially raised the group limit from 25 to 42 in January 2011.
- Teen Grid merger - There’s been plenty of mixed views from the SL community about this during Q4 2010 and Q1 2011. Linden Lab merged the grids on 21st January 2011.
- Bring Back Last Name Options – Linden Lab removed last names and there has been buzz about bringing back last names since July 2011. Linden Lab are still reviewing this JIRA.
- Google+ & Facebook - During the first half of the year there were reports of SL avatar accounts being suspended and deleted.
- SLCC 2011 - The first conference where Rod Humble attended & again SLCC was full of announcements/updates.
- SL closures - ElvenMyst, Abbots Aerodrome, AM Radio sims were just some places that announced closure during 2011.
- 50% Premium membership – In the last few months Linden Lab announced that residents could save 50% on premium membership when they sign up (limited time offers). In September 2011 Linden Lab introduced new premium benefits to the SL community.
- Linden Lab communications – At the start of the year office hours were turned into user group meetings but there are fewer now than the start of the year. Linden Lab used Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and JIRA more frequently this year to communicate with the SL community. Since January there have been monthly posts on the SL blog from the lab.
- Second Life in the news during 2011 - List of news stories added by Linden Lab during 2011.
What other SL popular news stories of 2011 do you know of ?
New video showing how to download, install, and setup Second Life
Watch these newly uploaded Second Life videos by freychris42424 showing how to download, install and setup Second Life for the first time. These new interesting helpful videos will help any new resident in Second Life get started on the grid. Check this out!
Here is the second Second Life video which shows you how to move, go places, friend, and other basic features.
Like this:
Linden Lab releases new Viewer 3 user interface
On 18th October 2011 Oz Linden added a new Beta Candidate to the SL wiki Downloading test builds page. Viewer 3.2.0 beta viewer now has a new user interface which looks good. Today I downloaded and installed the new beta version which seems to working fine on my pc. I like the customization and the new features added in this release.
When I logged in I noticed that there was no sidebar and that’s because Linden Lab have replaced it with new customized panels. A big majority of SL users wanted the sidebar to be removed in the early releases-recent releases of Viewer 2 and now most of which have moved to third-party viewers instead. Many liked Viewer 1 for many reasons and now with this new release perhaps users will start returning to Viewer 3.
New changes
- New panels have been added left of the viewer and at the bottom
- New Avatar picker added to left panels
- Notifications now appear top right of the screen
- New Received Items in Inventory > when purchasing things from the marketplace
- Dashboard & Toolbars added to the Me menu
- New Destinations Guide on the bottom toolbar
- Shop button added to top toolbar
- There’s much more!
The new Viewer 3 user interface
Looking at the new Avatars picker
Dashboard & Toolbars have been added to Me menu
New How To basics
New Destinations Guide
Basic Chat bar
Here are some mixed reactions from the SL community about the new Viewer 3 user interface.
Likes
- I like it
- It looks good
- Looks promising
- It’s running pretty smoothly
- Not happy with another change
- Not so good for performace
- There are significant bugs
- Slightly behind firestorm with regards to the toolbar/ sidebar
