Dolphin Viewer is making a splash

I wanted to give some praise to a viewer that has recently become my “go to” viewer when logging into Second life. The Dolphin viewer has been a pleasant surprise to me, and quite a few others based on some posts I have been reading.

I know what you are saying.”But Karma, were you not just posting about how the Exodus viewer was ‘making a big splash’? Before that, wasn’t it Kirstin’s viewer?” Well yes. It was. Thanks for noticing. However, Kirstin’s is gone and Exodus development appears to be on hiatus. Fact is, there are a lot of new viewers out there being developed by some really smart people and I like to try them out, so please don’t interrupt me again. Plus it isa great headline. “Big Splash” …”Dolphin”, get it?

Dolphin is V3 based and incorporates some great features into a very sturdy package. My favorite feature is the “machinema toolbar” that takes a lot of great graphic settings and puts them at your fingertips. It is awesome for photography work or filming. The viewer also offers RLV and some great touches to the mapping system. A big selling point on this viewer, and why I tend to always go back to it, is its reliability. As viewer’s go, this thing is a tank. Even with ultra settings, it is hard for me to crash this viewer.

As of this posting, the viewer is considered the second most reliable in Second Life, just behind Firestorm based on crash rate. Combine that with the great graphics and high FPS and you have yourself a winner. There are some other great viewer I will be talking about in the future, but you owe it to yourself to give Dolphin a try.

Try the Dolphin Viewer here

Advanced Experience Tools Preview

Hey there! While I am out enjoying some much needed RL spring weather (and cheering on the University of Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA basketball tournament!) I thought I would share some new development tools that LL is working on. Along with the pathfinding tool I blogged on earlier,  LL is also working on  what thay call “Advance Experience Tools”. Go Cats!

More info from the SL blogs here:

Advanced Experience Tools Preview.

Exodus Viewer is making a big splash

The Exodus Viewer, initially a third party viewer geared towards combat, has recently begun to make a big splash with its latest release full of rich features and amazing graphics.

I am a bit of a viewer junkie. I am even crazy enough to occasionally take the Linden Labs beta releases of their official viewers out for a spin. This is always exciting! (I should note that the last few beta releases have actually been pretty swell.) Lately, I have found myself using the new Exodus Viewer almost exclusively. Taking off where the that latest official viewer leaves off, Exodus offers rich features, great graphics and FPS at or above my current LL viewer.

The viewer’s website describes Exodus as a “specialized third party viewer for gamers and visual artists.”  If you think about it, it only makes since that a viewer built by combat gamer would be fast and look good. I mean, you don’t want lag when someone is shooting at you, right?  Now, I am by no means a “gamer” so for me the real “cat’s pajamas” of this viewer are its artistic twists.The vewer has pulled out some of the more useful rendering tools and put them in their own small preference viewers which makes adjusting the  wind lights setting, shadow qualities and all sorts of little tweaks right at your fingertips. That is only scratching the surface of all the cool features Exodus offers. You can see a full list of the viewer’s features here:

http://exodusviewer.com/features.html

Until it ceased development, I was a huge fan Kirstins Viewer. This was largely due to the great graphics that it provided during photography. Exodus has been as good, if not better, since it has also given me some additional FPS. My computer was bought off the shelf almost 10 years ago, so I can safely say you don’t need some sort of fancy machine to run it. Machinima artist Pesto Portland made a great little tutorial for the viewer that I have included below. It focus a lot on the visual features, but I included it anyway because he has a really cool accent.

The official Exodus Viewer website can be found here:

http://exodusviewer.com/