Cool VL Viewer forum

Here are two new releases of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

These are maintenance/bugfix releases and recommended updates.


Cool VL Viewer v1.30.2.36 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Fixed the bug (introduced in v1.30.2.25) which caused vertices to fail to be drawn for meshes in selection highlighting mode.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix for "detaching an attachment stops unrelated animations".
• Fixed blurry textures sometimes seen on faces with below-unity texture scaling (e.g. on displays with scripted changing text), which also got the nice side effect to, on the contrary, avoid loading at an excessive resolution the textures with repeats per face larger than one.
• Improved the algorithm implemented in last release to prevent preview floaters from popping up after a copy/paste in the inventory, by extending its scope to copy/pasting of several identical items.
• Improved the generic inventory items picker. In particular, made it so it does not auto-select any more the first matching item (which caused unwanted effects, especially when "Apply immediately" is checked).
• Improved the inventory items "Properties" floater; fixed bugs in it (opening of wrong profile by buttons), added a "Thumbnail..." button for agent's inventory items properties, and made it a dependent floater (instead of opening in random places on the screen and failing to remember its old position).
• Improved the inventory thumbnail floater, adding the necessary code for potential future support of thumbnails associated with objects inventory items (not possible for now, since objects inventory management uses legacy UDP messaging and not AISv3). Also added a new "ThumbnailAutoPickTexture" debug setting (FALSE by default since still glitchy) to allow, when changing the thumbnail texture for an inventory one, auto-selecting any texture in the folder (or parent folder for an item thumbnail) as a candidate in the picker (sadly, there is a glitch which forces you to manually click on that selected texture item in the picker before modifying or confirming your choice).
• Added support for highlighting and tool tips in the script editor for the new GLTF and render materials related LSL functions and constants.
• Updated FMOD Studio to v2.02.19.
• Linux x86_64 only: rebuilt Dullahan against the latest CEF 119 release (with security fixes).
• Linux only: in the wrapper script, now preload (via LD_PRELOAD) libcef.so, since otherwise, CEF119's insane use of TLS space would cause the dynamic loader to abort when loading this library from the SLPlugin executable. This got the side effects of increasing the memory usage (by 250MB or so) when no web plugin is running in the viewer (since libcef.so then stays loaded until the viewer exits) but also, on the other hand, of speeding up the web plugin loading and first page rendering. It solves as well failed CEF launches when the viewer is built with the Tracy profiler (same TLS usage issue, which gets even larger with Tracy's data storage, and thus impacted older CEF11x releases as well).
• Code cleanup, removal of dead code and minor optimizations.

Cool VL Viewer v1.31.0.14 (experimental branch):

Please, see this post about this branch, which is a backport of LL's PBR viewer and yet preserves EE rendering modes (dual renderer).

Same changes as for v1.30.2.36, plus:

• Now consider PBR materials normal and emissive maps as "ALM" ones, allowing to apply a discard bias penalty (like for legacy materials normal and specular maps) to them when the texture memory is under pressure.
• Backported from LL's PBR viewer a fix to "overriding to alpha mode blend not working".
• Backported from LL's PBR viewer a fix to "revert of materials not working properly in some cases".
• Backported from LL's PBR viewer a fix to "blank no-copy materials are not moved into scripted objects".

Enjoy !

Here are two new releases of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

These are Linux-only releases, with ARM64 builds !
Almost no code change, just libraries updates.


Cool VL Viewer v1.30.2.37 (stable branch):
Cool VL Viewer v1.31.0.15 (experimental branch):

New in these releases:

• Linux x86_64 only: recompiled liblua with the latest upstream bug fixes applied.
• Linux x86_64 only: updated meshoptimizer to 0.20, libxml2 to v2.12.0, libpcre to v8.45 and SDL2 to 2.28.5; recompiled the other libraries depending on them.
• Linux aarch64 only: adapted the build scripts and compiled all the libraries for ARM64 (the hard dependency for builds using them is a glibc v2.35 or newer Linux distro).
• Minor code cleanup.

Note about the ARM64 builds: since recompiling the CEF library on a small ARM64 SBC would be quite painful a task, the Dullahan plugin is using Spotify's CEF builds, which sadly won't run with jemalloc (I am using a personal patch in my CEF Linux builds to allow this), so the ARM64 builds cannot benefit from the latter for now; I need to figure out how to cross-compile CEF for aarch64 SBCs on an x86_64 PC...


Enjoy !

Here are two new releases of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

These are maintenance/bugfix releases and recommended updates.


Cool VL Viewer v1.30.2.38 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Fixed a bug that caused super-slow textures creation by the main thread (shared GL threads unaffected) on weak hardware. See this message for details.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix for a "crash inside unpackBinaryData()", that could potentially be seen on receiving a corrupted UDP message.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix for a potential "crash clearing LLEventPumps".
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix for the bad camera axis sometimes seen after a TP to home.
• Backported from LL's PBR viewer the possibility to set GL sub-images line by line instead as whole in a single glTexSubImage2D() call: this is supposed to speed up GL image creations from the main thread (it does not apply to the shared GL threads), but I could not confirm this on modern (NVIDIA) hardware, and it seems detrimental on weak hardware. Made it an option (disabled by default), controlled by a new "RenderGLSetSubImagePerLine" debug setting (may be toggled on the fly). People with an AMD GPU and not using the "OpenGL worker threads" may want to give it a try...
• Re-enabled a line that got removed (likely by mistake) in LL's PBR viewer to preserve scale on uploaded mesh.
• Fixed the lower bound for the draw distance spinner in the "Graphics" preferences tab to accept 32m.
• Linux aarch64 only: implemented proper CPU family and model detection, as well as core frequency reading.
• Synced parallel_hashmap with latest upstream changes.
• Minor code cleanup and optimizations.

Cool VL Viewer v1.31.0.16 (experimental branch):

Please, see this post about this branch, which is a backport of LL's PBR viewer and yet preserves EE rendering modes (dual renderer).

Same changes as for v1.30.2.38, plus:

• Backported from LL's PBR viewer "fix material set from script not updating when the GLTF material has non-default texture transforms".
• Backported from LL's PBR viewer a fix to "local textures not updating on PBR Materials" (note: the live material editor is still broken with regard to local textures: better creating a new inventory material using for it the now working local textures support, and applying that inventory material to the face(s) you want to test before uploading the textures).
• Minor code cleanup.

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

Since LL pushed their PBR RC viewer to the release status (despite the fact it is still full of rendering glitches and issues), the former v1.31.0 experimental branch of the Cool VL Viewer becomes today the new v1.32.0 stable branch, deprecating as well the v1.30.2 former stable branch. But fear not: v1.32.0 is now just as stable as the previous stable branch, and does not remove any feature seen in the latter (i.e. in excess of PBR, you still can render with the EE renderer, which is the default renderer still).

All users should upgrade.


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.0 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Worked around an AISv3 fetching bug occurring when trying to fetch an individual item without knowing its parent folder, and which caused offered items from other residents to fail appearing in the inventory. See this thread for details.
• Fixed a bug in my backport of AISv3's fetching (too deep a depth for some folders fetching).
• Made it so that sim event polls replies are processed only at the right times (together with idle network tasks processing, or after voluntarily yielding to coroutines during the frame rate limiting process), and not as soon as the main coroutine yields, which might cause rendering issues (note that this condition was detected by LL but their own implementation of the poll replies postponing is totally bogus and causes crashes, so I re-designed and reimplemented it from scratch).
• Backported from LL's viewer a fix for GLTF material overrides to default value not always working.
• Backported from LL's viewer the possibility to disable HDR tone mapping during snapshots: the toggle is available (when in PBR rendering mode) as a new "No post-processing for snapshots" entry in the "Advanced" menu.
• Added syntax highlighting and tool tips support in the script editor for the new SKY_REFLECTION_PROBE_AMBIANCE, CHANGED_RENDER_MATERIAL and PRIM_REFLECTION_* LSL constants.
• Linux only: fixed an issue with the pre-loaded libcef.so library polluting with (wrongly) re-exported static library functions the external (system) browser when the latter is launched from the viewer, causing a failure to start the said browser due to library versions mismatches on some systems (with older libraries installed). See this message for details. Added a couple configuration variables in cool_vl_viewer.conf ("BROWSER" and "LL_LAUNCHER_LOGFILE") related with external browser launching (read the comments for them to learn about their usage).
• Linux only: rebuilt Dullahan against the latest CEF 120 release.
• Linux only: fixed broken LTO linking process with gcc (note however that LTO still does not bring any clear speed advantage with gcc, unlike what happens for clang LTO builds).
• Minor code cleanup.

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.1 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Backported from LL's release viewer and from LL's DRTVWR-596 maintenance branch all the changes made to PBR shaders. This sadly breaks shadows (see BUG-234564), but I managed to tweak debug settings to (partly) revive them, and I could not keep the status quo anyway, since other fixes are being introduced in DRTVWR-596 (e.g. water and underwater related rendering fixes) and must be backported.
• Backported from LL's DRTVWR-596 maintenance branch "fix for box probes sometimes glitching out at the corners".
• Made it so that HUDs are no more clickable when hidden (via "Show HUD attachments" un-ticking). See this thread for details.
• Added a new MoveToInventoryFolder() Lua function. See the updated Lua manual for details.
• On successful TP, now remove keyboard focus from any focused floater/panel, to allow moving around immediately with keyboard keys after TPs.
• Linux only: added PNG application icons in multiple sizes to the distribution and changed the wrapper script to register them with the desktop environment (sadly, the brain-dead GNOME 3 still does not make use of them, unlike every other desktop environment I tried: if anyone knows how to convince it to use custom application icons, let me know !).
• Linux aarch64 only: recompiled libepoxy against a more complete GL[ES|X] environment.
• Code cleanup, removal of dead code and minor optimizations.

Enjoy !

EDIT: please, see this known bug with the provided fix (shader file).

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

This is a maintenance/bugfix release and a recommended update.


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.2 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Fixed the bug introduced in last release and which caused semi-transparent HUDs to render opaque in PBR mode. See this message for details.
• Modified the PBR water shader so that water bodies look more realistic, with a better color (closer to the EE renderer color) than almost sky blue.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix to bad inventory folders version accounting, that could cause an apparent failure to rename folders until relog.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix to potential crashes related with dead (derezzed) animesh objects.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer the addition to the "PBR materials" toggle entry in the "Advanced" -> "Rendering" -> "Types" menu.
• Backported from LL's DRTVWR-596 viewer its various fixes to the PBR shaders and render pipeline.
• Added a way to inform the user about the shaders recompilation (which cannot be done via a standard notification, since rendering is suspended while it happens): the viewer window title now changes with "Compiling shaders" appended during this process and, for Linux only, the splash screen is shown with "Compiling shaders..." printed in it (the latter can be disabled if you don't like it via a new "LL_DISABLE_SHADER_COMPILING_SPLASH" environment variable: see the cool_vl_viewer.conf file).
• Added highlighting and tool tips support in the script editor for the new LSL llGetInventoryDesc(), llIsFriend(), llListFindListNext() and llRezObjectWithParams() functions, and REZ_* constants.
• Updated the ca-bundle.crt certificates file to LL's latest one.
• Synced parallel_hashmap with latest upstream changes.
• Updated FMOD Studio to v2.02.20.
• Updated the boost libraries to v1.84 and rebuilt colladadom against them.
• Linux only: rebuilt the glib libraries (against zlib-ng instead of zlib for aarch64, and to version v2.58.3 instead of v2.56.4 for x86_64, matching the new build system and CEF requirements).
• Modified the CEF plugin code to properly work with newest CEF 120 releases (which require a separate cache directory for each running instance), while preserving shared cookies between CEF sessions and instances. Note however that the new cache scheme/constraint prevents from reusing an old cache in new CEF sessions (meaning more network traffic).
• Linux only: updated and rebuilt Dullahan against the latest CEF 120 release, with security fixes.
• Code cleanup and minor optimizations.

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

This is an emergency release and all users of v1.32.0.2 should update.


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.3 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Reverted the water-related changes to the PBR shaders and render pipeline, since they broke the preview avatar code (causing a black screen when customizing appearance, or uploading a texture or an animation). See this thread for details.
• Updated tinygltf to v2.8.19.

Note: there is no official Linux ARM64 build for this version, since it is all about PBR, and ARM SBCs are far from being able to run with PBR enabled...

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.4 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Implemented a hack to use the base color texture of faces with a GLTF material instead of the diffuse texture when not in PBR rendering mode. See this message for details. Three toggles have been added in the "Advanced" -> "Rendering" -> "Deferred rendering" menu to switch between the three options: "Always use diffuse texture" (i.e. what other non-PBR viewers can see), "Use base color for missing diffuse" (i.e. use base color when the object creator did not provide a proper diffuse texture fallback: this is the default option) and "Always use base color" (ditto). Note that this hack is automatically disabled for faces being edited (i.e. selected faces when the Build/Edit floater is showing), and that it won't apply at all for faces with a media texture applied (because the hack reuses the trick used for replacing the diffuse texture with the media texture).
• Improved the CTRL ALT SHIFT G feature, to also dump GLTF materials colors/factors.
• Added a CTRL ALT P keyboard shortcut for toggling the PBR rendering mode.
• Added a new "Pick unselectable in edit mode" entry to the "Tools" menu (enabled by default), to allow temporarily disabling (this is a non-persistent setting) the selection of unselectable objects (i.e. objects with "Ignore object" touch action or reflection probes) when the Build/Edit floater is showing.
• Improved the media plugins shutdown code on viewer exit so to ensure CEF can cleanly shut down.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer "ignore pelvis fixup when sitting in mouse-look".
• Backported from Alchemy viewer (Rye Mutt's code) "fix GLTF upload failing to strip opaque alpha channels".
• Backported from Alchemy viewer collada's build (Rye Mutt's code) "fix parsing error for large mesh files".
• Linux only: updated the various bash scripts to use #!/usr/bin/env bash instead of #!/bin/bash in their shebang, since some (rare) Linux distros now apparently moved bash from /bin to /usr/bin and do not even care to setup a symbolic link for it in /bin...
• Linux only: updated ELFIO to v3.12.
• Minor code cleanup.

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

This is a maintenance/bugfix release and all users should update to it.


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.5 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Fixed a copy/paste bug introduced in last release and that could cause alpha rendering issues with legacy materials.
• Do not "touch" (mark for update/download) any more non-PBR textures (diffuse, legacy materials) on faces with a PBR material when in PBR rendering mode, to avoid seeing them downloaded for nothing.
• Refined the hack to use the base color texture of faces with a GLTF material instead of the diffuse texture when not in PBR rendering mode. See this message for details.
• Changed the Build/Edit floater code to allow setting diffuse and legacy material textures and parameters on a face bearing a GLTF material. Also changed the drag and drop code to allow dropping again a diffuse texture on a face with a GLTF material. There is strictly no reason to forbid such operations, much to the contrary, since such a silly restriction makes creators' task harder to support both legacy material and GLTF ones on their PBR-enabled builds.
• Fixed several bugs in the live GLTF editor. Sadly, live editing (on faces, via the Edit/Build floater) of GLTF materials is still broken elsewhere (this is the last bug in my PBR backport that I need to find and fix).
• Further improved the CTRL ALT SHIFT G feature, to also dump GLTF materials alpha mask cutoff for alpha-masking faces.
• Backported from Alchemy (Rye Mutt's brilliant idea) the splitting of the SSAO setting with a new softening shadow setting, making it possible to soften shadows without needing to enable the (costly and largely useless) SSAO mode. Shadows softening ("RenderShadowSoften" setting) is now enabled by default (SSAO still disabled by default), and a new "Soften shadows" toggle was added to the Advanced -> "Rendering" -> "Deferred rendering" menu.
• Linux aarch64 only: removed the (unused) possibility to use jemalloc since anyway, and even should a patched/compatible CEF binary be produced for use with it, there is an ARM64-specific issue with jemalloc page size and the configured aarch64 kernel page size that would make builds done on a given system fail to work on some other Linux aarch64 systems due to page size discrepancies.
• Minor code cleanup and optimizations.

Enjoy !

Here is a new release of the Cool VL Viewer, available now from http://sldev.free.fr/:

All users should update to this release.


Cool VL Viewer v1.32.0.6 (stable branch):

New in this release:

• Fixed the last (nasty and stealth) bug in my PBR backport that prevented to properly edit PBR materials on objects and fixed a few similar (potential) bugs in other parts of the viewer code.
• Now properly hide incompatible controls in the build floater when editing the PBR texture channels.
• Improved the material editor/preview floater (the live editor is now made dependent on the Build/Edit floater, while the material preview uses its own position settings).
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a fix for "material editor uses incorrect blank normal maps". Also backported from LL's viewer proper support for the default normal texture in the texture picker for legacy materials.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer a permissions change to allow applying directly inventory Library materials to your builds.
• Fixed improper Sun and Moon discs altitude in PBR rendering mode. See this thread for details.
• Backported from LL's maintenance viewer "fix for depth-based atmospheric mask making atmospherics effect Sun/Moon/clouds".
• Plugged potential crash bug cases when saving images to disk, should file writes fail.
• Fixed potential mesh vertex cache optimization issues due to non-zeroed padding bytes in mesh vertex data.
• When blocking "Collision sounds" (from the "Preferences" floater, "Audio & media" tab, "Audio" sub-tab), the collision sounds with the ground are also now blocked (ears-savior for LL's sim servers current sound spam bug, which has not yet been fully fixed).
• Added search filter UI elements to the Groups, Friends and Radar (in the Moderation tab, for the latter) floaters, allowing to filter names and only display matching ones in their list.
• Fixed a bug in the Lua print() code that would cause non-printable values to get their wrong type name printed. Added support for printing simple Lua table.
• Added GetAgentFriends(), GetAgentGroups(), GetRadarList() and SetLuaFloaterInvFilter() to the Lua functions, and added support for search_editor UI elements to custom Lua floaters. See the updated Lua manual for details.
• Now allow and support using a HUD scaling factor between 0.5 and 1.0 (extending the full available factor range between 0.5 and 2.0). See the corresponding slider in the "Preferences" floater, "General" tab.
• Changed the calling cards associated avatar UUID determination logic to allow using calling cards created and given to you by a third person for another avatar.
• Linux only: updated and rebuilt Dullahan against the latest CEF 120 release, with security fixes.
• Minor code cleanup and optimizations.

Enjoy !