Things are liable to be getting busy in terms of TPV viewer updates over the next month or two. As noted in this blog, the Lab has now released their HTTP pipelining code for the viewer, which TPVs are being encouraged to adopt as soon as they can, and there have been a spate of other updates and fixes for the viewer that already are, and will be finding their way into TPVs.

Two of the most recent v3-style viewer to update have been Black Dragon and the Restrained Love Viewer, and the following is a quick overview of the most recent releases for both of these viewers.

Black Dragon 2.4.0.3 and 2.4.0.4

Black Dragon received two release updates in the space of around 24 hours. The first came when NiranV Dean released version 2.4.0.3 on October 29th, and the second saw the release of version 2.4.0.4 on October 31st.

A blog post on Niran’s website outlines the principle changes which appeared in the 2.4.0.3 version of his viewer, summarising them as:

A fix for the viewer failing to correctly apply maturity settings

An experimental update to the Godrays feature by Tofu Buzzard so that they now cast a faked volumetric sunlight everywhere where light can fall

Godray default lowered to 32

A new option in Preferences > Display to switch between a new shadow softening kernel by Tofu Buzzard and the LL default

Keyboard shortcut for Depth of Field locking changed to CTRL-X in the hopes of correcting a clash with another (unknown) shortcut

in the hopes of correcting a clash with another (unknown) shortcut Addition of Geenz Spad’s spotlight reflection changes.

The 2.4.0.4 release is, in terms of user functions, the same as the 2.4.0.3 release; the major difference is that he has the Lab’s HTTP Pipelining updates included (which Niran has, for some reason referred to as the “CDN code”).

Geenz Spad’s work on glossy projectors can be found in JIRA STORM-2067. This corrects the tendency where, depending on a surface’s environment intensity, projected reflections they become more blurred as their intensity increases, they should become sharper for higher gloss values and more blurred for lower values.

As always, full details of all changes can be found in the change logs for the viewer.

This is another progressive step forward with Black Dragon, with Niran working to address issues as well as integrate updates from both LL and other developers which help further enhance the viewer and take it in a direction which matches the Lab’s important HTTP updates as well as enhancing the features Niran uses to help differentiate his viewer from other TPV offerings. Black Dragon users should be pleased.

Restrained Love Viewer 2.9.3

Marine Kelley updated her Restrained Love Viewer on October 30th. The focus of the release is on the RLV code itself, with a list of what has been updated, improved, fixed, etc., available through the blog post from Marine accompanying the release. This is actually very much a “two for one” release, combining two updates into one, as Marine notes:

This is simply because the day I released 2.9.2, I worked on integrating the latest changes from LL (which were many), and found them quite useful, so I decided to go straight to 2.9.3 so you could benefit from them too.

Outside of the RLV updates, the 2.9.3 release includes a number of updates directly from the Lav, including:

The most recent server-side appearance (SSA) updates

The updated snapshot floater, as developed by NiranV Dean and contributed to the Lab, which also includes the SL Share 2 capabilities for sharing to Twitter and Flickr, and the photo filter options

The updated log-in splash screen now used with the official viewer.

It’s not clear from the release notes as to what else from the Lab is included in the update, or which code base it is based upon; the use of the updated log-in splash screen points to at least 3.7.17, although it may conceivably be later than that. No mention, however, is made on the inclusion of HTTP pipelining code, so it’s unclear if this is in the viewer or not (although I suspect not).

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