Stunning Imagery at 20-Frames a Second. At least.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 | 
~
Ari Blackthorne™
It's been a while since I've used the Kirsten viewer, my absolute favorite, defacto SL viewer about a year or so ago. The reason I hadn't used it in so long began with the typical nonsensical drama over the opensource licensing (boneheaded complaints from others, likely competitors who don't have the skill to hold a candle to Kirsten's.) So Kirsten pulled her builds, shut-down her blog and basically closed-up shop (from public access.)
Happily, shop was opened again. But this time there was some stupid external security update file required from Microsoft (go figure; yay Microsoft,) in order to get the newest build of the viewer to even launch.
Fast-forward a few months. I see there is a new build: S18-1. I shrug. However, in the post to her blog, Kirsten mentions the following:
My curiosity got the better of me and so I decided to give Kirsten's Viewer another try:
Stunning!
It installed and fired-up smoothly. The new shadow-casting feature is turned-on by default and I am impressed with it (though the shadows appear a bit darker than they should I think.) So I go into my preferences and go with my usual settings, which is pretty much customized to maximize all sliders except for particles.
I notice a new setting for anti-aliasing! I set it to 4x and it seems a bit much. I set it to 2x and it's just right. I go into the "advanced" tab and find a treasure-trove of additional graphical settings. Like a starving dog on a truck-load of bones I am having a field day. And the most surprising part is that I am still getting a good 20-frames-per-second, at least! This in heavy-prim areas (a lot of surrounding builds like on the mainland) - but when I get to a lower-lag area, practically 30-frames-a-second!
If you choose to investigate Kirsten's viewer, be forewarned. It is not for the faint-of-heart. That would be your PC's heart as it is one-hell of a load on your machine. I am using an Athlon Dual-core CPU with 3-GB of RAM and an nVidia 9600 with 512MB of video RAM. This is a viewer for newer computers with high-end graphics horsepower to be sure.
But if you are a snapshot-pig like me, this is a must-have viewer, even if you choose not to make it your "main" viewer.
So I now have two Second Life viewers installed: Imprudence Viewer, for the usability features it provides in day-to-day grid-hopping and the Kirsten's S18-1 Viewer for those times I decide it's a photo-hunting day to gather-up as much awesome SL scenery as I can muster.
They make a great pair. Now if Kirsten could only include a few minor features I find indispensable that are featured in the Emerald and Imprudence, such as "double-click-to-teleport" (which I use consrtantly!) Oh, it might be in there, I haven't had a chance to really look, yet. But I didn't see anything of that nature in the preferences.
So if you are seriously into the "look" of the virtual world (especially if you are into SL 'photography') and your computer can handle it, you definitely must add the Kirsten's Viewer to your arsenal. However, if you simply cannot live without some of those bonus features included with Imprudence, Emerald (or any of the other aftermarket viewers) - you'll want to keep that one around as well and save the Kirstens for when you are in the mood for awesome visuals.
The image above is a screenshot of the Kirsten's Viewer with default (immediately after installing) graphic settings and Anti-Alias set to 2x. There is zero photoshopping or any kind of touch-up. This image went straight from the viewer to my Flickr stream without passing through any other softare. Here is a quick-link to the full-sized version so you can see the detail. This is a "sunrise" view.
Source:
Kirstenlee.Cinquetti: Kirstens S18-1 (215) NiranV Mod.
Happily, shop was opened again. But this time there was some stupid external security update file required from Microsoft (go figure; yay Microsoft,) in order to get the newest build of the viewer to even launch.
Fast-forward a few months. I see there is a new build: S18-1. I shrug. However, in the post to her blog, Kirsten mentions the following:
...new preferences which expose more graphical options and tweakage normally buried deep in the viewer.I must admit my curiosity was piqued. I've been using the Imprudence viewer elusively for the past month (no other viewer installed on my system whatsoever) and I like it a lot, annoyances not withstanding. Imprudence includes the best features of the Emerald viewer, and much of the code from the Snow Globe viewer, including my largest pet-peeve: the snapshot bug where saving images directly to disk (high-resolution snapshot to disk feature) ruins the snapshot by capturing only the lower left 2/3 of the image.
My curiosity got the better of me and so I decided to give Kirsten's Viewer another try:
Stunning!It installed and fired-up smoothly. The new shadow-casting feature is turned-on by default and I am impressed with it (though the shadows appear a bit darker than they should I think.) So I go into my preferences and go with my usual settings, which is pretty much customized to maximize all sliders except for particles.
I notice a new setting for anti-aliasing! I set it to 4x and it seems a bit much. I set it to 2x and it's just right. I go into the "advanced" tab and find a treasure-trove of additional graphical settings. Like a starving dog on a truck-load of bones I am having a field day. And the most surprising part is that I am still getting a good 20-frames-per-second, at least! This in heavy-prim areas (a lot of surrounding builds like on the mainland) - but when I get to a lower-lag area, practically 30-frames-a-second!
If you choose to investigate Kirsten's viewer, be forewarned. It is not for the faint-of-heart. That would be your PC's heart as it is one-hell of a load on your machine. I am using an Athlon Dual-core CPU with 3-GB of RAM and an nVidia 9600 with 512MB of video RAM. This is a viewer for newer computers with high-end graphics horsepower to be sure.
But if you are a snapshot-pig like me, this is a must-have viewer, even if you choose not to make it your "main" viewer.
So I now have two Second Life viewers installed: Imprudence Viewer, for the usability features it provides in day-to-day grid-hopping and the Kirsten's S18-1 Viewer for those times I decide it's a photo-hunting day to gather-up as much awesome SL scenery as I can muster.
They make a great pair. Now if Kirsten could only include a few minor features I find indispensable that are featured in the Emerald and Imprudence, such as "double-click-to-teleport" (which I use consrtantly!) Oh, it might be in there, I haven't had a chance to really look, yet. But I didn't see anything of that nature in the preferences.
So if you are seriously into the "look" of the virtual world (especially if you are into SL 'photography') and your computer can handle it, you definitely must add the Kirsten's Viewer to your arsenal. However, if you simply cannot live without some of those bonus features included with Imprudence, Emerald (or any of the other aftermarket viewers) - you'll want to keep that one around as well and save the Kirstens for when you are in the mood for awesome visuals.
The image above is a screenshot of the Kirsten's Viewer with default (immediately after installing) graphic settings and Anti-Alias set to 2x. There is zero photoshopping or any kind of touch-up. This image went straight from the viewer to my Flickr stream without passing through any other softare. Here is a quick-link to the full-sized version so you can see the detail. This is a "sunrise" view.
Source:
Kirstenlee.Cinquetti: Kirstens S18-1 (215) NiranV Mod.
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