Cool VL Viewer forum

I am using the 1.26.8.6 Cool VL Viewer and was trying to use the Snapshot Floater to take some quick pictures. However, I couldn't get the part in the floater that makes the HUD's disappear in the shot to come out of grey out, and be usable. Did we lose this ability at sometime ? I will come back with a log if this is a bug instead of a feature deletion. Thanks Henri, for all that you do with Cool VL Viewer.

Your avatar is simply wearing a RLV-locked HUD, which causes the viewer to forbid snapshots without HUDs (this is to prevent cheating when wearing a "blindfold" HUD, and is the expected behaviour).

Hello.

I was wondering if you could put an exception to that (perhaps in Preferences> Cool Features> Restrained Love> Custom). If one can be allowed to cheat having their IMs locked, what does a screenshot matter?

The thing is, I wear the Whims HUD (an OpenCollar alternative), but I need to make screenshots too (for the parties I host, the shows I'm in and general photography) and I can't have my AO and other HUDS showing in them. I don't wear a blindfold or anything of the sort.

Thanks.

The request makes sense, but the implementation is delicate: allowing this exception is different from blacklisting a set of commands (note that you can use the "RestrainedLoveBlacklist" debug setting to customize the said list to your heart's content: the "Custom" menu is just a user-friendly way to build the blacklist string for this setting), which the RLV devices can read back to check what commands you blacklisted...

I will have to speak with Marine about it...

Possible solutions:

• Adding a @non_blindfold modifier command, so that RLV-locking HUDs which are not blindfolds can declare themselves and not be considered an obstacle to hiding HUDs in snapshots, even when they are locked. Of course, this would require that RLV-locking HUDs that are not blindfolds are modified accordingly, but if they are mod-ok, it would just be a matter of adding a tiny script in them (that simply runs llOwnerSay("@non_blindfold") on rezzing).
• Adding a @snapshot=n/y RLV command and removing entirely the snapshot HUD hiding restriction for locked HUDs (only relying on this new @snapshot restriction to forbid entirely snapshots), meaning a HUD wanting to act as a blindfold would just have to emit the "@snapshot=n" command whenever it is actually acting as one, then "@snapshot=y" (or "@clear") when they are no more acting as a blindfold. But of course, this would allow to cheat with old blindfolds not making use of that new @snapshot command...

I'll check this, thank you.



Just to understand that the issue here is: Are you concerned that a person wearing a blindfold, and thus being forbidden to see the world, might just take a snapshot and see the world that way? I understand that. But then, couldn't the code by modified so that the snapshot follows the restrictions, but just doesn't show the HUDs? In other words, can't the effect of the HUDs' restriction remain, just without showing the HUDs themselves? That is the issue I'm raising: not the effect of the HUD, only its appearance on the picture. (Of course, I'm not a programmer, I have no idea how that could implemented. All I know of programming is a first-year course in Pascal during university, over twenty years ago:), so I'm talking in safety here.)

Addition: For reference, it's the same issue as when you need to zoom out your HUD space, in order to move back to the viewable rectangle a HUD that was made for a 24+" monitor, but doesn't appear in my old 17" monitor. I don't want to detach any locked HUDs or cheat my RLV restriction, I just want to see that colour-changing HUD for my shirt that the creator decided should be 10cm out of my viewing space.

Furthermore, it's not just actual in-character RLV restrictions. It's also HUDs that simply use this restriction in order to not be detached by mistake. For example, at the theatre shows I use this camera angle HUD that allows me to view a few specific angles by clicking a button, and it's really useful for laggy performances with lots of people and lots of scripts running. (But I need to take pictures too.)

Thank you for considering the issue.

I made Marine aware about this issue/thread. We are exploring potential solutions.

The idea is to better suit the actual purpose of the restrictions without making it too easy to cheat legit/intended purposes.

I was wondering if there are any news for this. Meanwhile, to take pictures, I just unlock my HUD…

No news so far...

I came up with the attached patch, that you may apply to your own private viewer builds, if you want, but be aware that it has not been approved and nothing guarantees the final solution, if any, would come in the same form.

With this patch, you can add a small script to your RLV mod-ok attachments that are not blindfolds, making that script emit a llOwnerSay("@non_blindfold") on rezzing/attach, to declare themselves as being exempt from the snapshot restriction when locked (i.e. they won't trigger the force-showing of all HUDs in snapshots when they are locked).

I'll try to do that. Thanks!

I think I failed to patch the source. It did not write the applied_patches.txt file during compilation and does not recognise the @non_blindfold command. All I had to do was put the patch in ~/.secondlife/patches/cool_vl_viewer and then run the script, yes? Should I had removed the ".txt" extension before?