Today the Firestorm team announced a brand new version (6.2.4.57588) of the well known Firestorm Viewer. This latest version is fully merged up to the 6.2.3 Linden code-base. See the full release notes here.
There are many new features including the EAM (Estate Access Management) tools, LMR (Love Me Render) containing rendering bug fixes, improvements to communications, inventory, appearance and much more. This new update means that version 5.0.11.53634 will be blocked from logging in to the Second Life grid in 3 weeks time.
New Change For SL & OpenSim Users
Second Life and OpenSim versions of the Firestorm viewer are no longer going to be joined together going forward starting in Firestorm 6.2.4.57588 which is now for Second Life only.
The Firestorm team will now issue updates for Second Life and OpenSim independently, There will be no need to worry about backwards compatibility in future versions.
We have reached a milestone in how we handle Open Simulator and Second Life binaries. In the past we have provided SL-only builds AND OpenSim-and-SL builds. This has always caused much confusion to our users, and for that reason—among many others—we have forked our code into two repositories. This means we can now issue updates for Second Life and updates for OpenSim independently of each other. It also makes it a lot easier for us to develop for Second Life without worrying about backwards compatibility with OpenSim, and to develop for OpenSim without concern about SL compatibility. Everyone wins!
No longer will the two be tied by release date or version numbers. Firestorm developer Beq Janus has been communicating with OpenSim developers and grid owners and has been working hard on OpenSim-specific issues for a future OpenSim Firestorm viewer update.
After the future OpenSim update:
- There will be TWO install directories if you wish to install both binaries and log into both SL and OpenSim.
- These will install independently from one another, will not share settings or cache, and therefore will not conflict with each other.
- The Second Life dedicated viewer’s grid manager will only offer Agni and Aditi (SL main and beta grids).
- The OpenSim dedicated viewer’s grid manager will NOT offer Second Life grids.
This is great news for both Second Life users and OpenSim users, and we are excited about the way we are moving forward.
Some of the things I like…
Advanced Region Info on World Map
IMPROVEMENT Advanced region info on the world map has been moved to a new row below the region name
To enable/disable showing of the advanced map information: Preferences → Move & View → Map & Minimap → Show additional region information on World Map.
When enabled, this option displays avatar count and maturity level for the region.
Ansarirl Hiller
EAM – Estate Access Management Project
EAM improves the state of Estate Access Management!
New features include:
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New “Access” tab in the Region/Estate floater with sub-tabs for “Estate Managers”, “Allowed”, “Allowed Groups”, and “Banned”.
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Search & Sort within each of the sub-tabs.
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Recording banned date, banned by, and last login for each banned account.
This feature is only available going forward. -
Copy Banlist & Allowed-list.
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Added a confirmation for adding or removing from a list.
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More Estate Managers! We’ve upped the number from 10 to 15. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.
AndreyL ProductEngine, Maxim ProductEngine, AndreyK ProductEngine
Love Me Render and HiDPI Retina Display Support
This update from Linden Lab adds retina display support on Mac, and has a variety of graphics-related fixes.
Note: For Mac displays with HiDPI support, retina display mode is disabled by default on Firestorm.
Enabling HiDPI support will generally give you a sharper display but a lower frame rate.If you want to enable HiDPI display, go to the preference settings page: Avatar → Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings, and tick the box
Enable support for HiDPI displays (Mac OSX only, requires restart), then restart the viewer.Graham Linden, Ruslan ProductEngine
Tonya Souther – Firestorm implementation of HiDPI support for Mac
New Texture Refresh Function
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NEW Added a Texture Refresh function to the inventory context menu for worn attachments.
Added the ability to texture refresh via right click menu in inventory.
This option is only available if the object is currently being worn and refreshes the texture of the worn object.
Zi Ree
New Avatar Stop Animations button to Toolbar
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NEW Added Avatar Stop Animations button to Toolbar
This feature was requested in FIRE-16256
Avatar → Toolbar Buttons → Stop Animations
Patch contributed by Angeldark Raymaker
See the full release notes here.
Daniel Voyager 