Cool VL Viewer forum

Cool VL Viewer 1.26.4 (12) May 12 2012 10:15:50 (Cool VL Viewer)
Release Notes

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 7850 Dual-Core Processor (2812.87 MHz)
Memory: 4096 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GT 520/PCI/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.17.0012.6742
OpenGL Version: 4.1.0

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.21.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8j zlib/1.2.3 c-ares/1.7.1
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
Audio Driver Version: FMOD version 3.750000
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been playing a bit with Cool VL Viewer with a couple of my alts on one of the opensim grids. It seems to work reasonable well, but I've ran smack dab into one particular flaw in it. I have my main residence, a large and elaborate skybox, set at 5000 meters up. It seems that Cool VL Viewer doesn't like dealing with Z coordinates above 4096 meters when it comes to things like editting prim location, or setting Home position. I rezzed a prim up there, and then tried to move it in edit mode using the colored arrows... and the prim wouldn't budge. I then tried typing a new Z coordinate in that was a meter higher than where it was rezzed, and BOOM! The prim vanished. A bit later, it dawned on me it might not be handling Z coordinates above 4096 (because SL doesn't let you place objects any higher than 4096), so on MetaImpy (a fork of the Imprudence viewer) I went to approximately where I was in my skybox where I'd previously rezzed the prim, and there I rezzed a cube prim, sat on it, and moved the prim (and me) down to around 4090 z, and sure enough, there was the other missing prim!

I've also discovered that if I set home position to somewhere up in my skybox (that is, at 5000 meters or so up) using Cool VL Viewer, and then (regardless of which viewer I'm on) I invoke Ctrl-Shift-H.... suddenly I'm plummeting from about 4096 meters, instead of arriving at the spot where I'd (tried to) set my home position. I can be up there in something other than Cool VL viewer, set my home position within my skybox, and then while logged in via Cool VL Viewer I can invoke Ctrl-Shift-H, and I WILL wind up at the intended spot in my skybox. Apparently Cool VL Viewer can't SET the home location correctly, if it's above 4096 meters. On the other hand, however, I can landmark a place above 4096 meters, and that WILL work correctly. That is, I can set a landmark, then click that landmark from inventory, and wind at in the coordinates intended. It's only when I try to set Home that it gets borked.

Another oddity: Fairly frequently, I'll be up in my skybox using Cool VL Viewer... and after while I notice walls and other prims have disappeared. They're still there, since when I walk around, the av physics still reacts to those prims... I just can't SEE them. I'm guessing this is due to Cool VL Viewer not dealing with stuff above 4096 meters well, since I have NOT seen this disappearing-prims issue in other viewers on my sim, and have not seen prims apparently disappear at lower altitudes, in either Cool VL Viewer or any other viewer, on my or anyone else's sim.

Beyond these, I haven't run into any obvious issues. There may be other oddities, I just haven't encountered them yet.

This is in no way a bug... The Cool VL Viewer, like pretty much all viewers, won't allow you to rez things or set home above 4096m since this is SL's (and AFAIK, "normal" OpenSim servers') limit.

If some people tweaked their OpenSim server and their viewer to break the 4096m limit, it's not my fault...

Please note also that while I strive to maintain OpenSim compatibility, I do not support Aurora sim extensions (and breakages)...

I was on an opensim grid that, two-plus years ago, had multiple, large builds set higher than 4096 meters. There was one large build -- seems to me it was a shopping center -- set somewhere like 10,000 meters up.

Others routinely had their builds at 5000 meters, 6000 meters, or higher. It wasn't hugely common to do that, but it wasn't exactly rare, either.

This was not on an Aurora-based grid, this was an OpenSim grid. That grid had some of their own tweeks under the hood, mostly their own kinds of bug-fixes to correct flaws in how opensim did certain things, but the main underlying code was opensim. It's actually the exact some fork of opensim that's now used on Avination.

Bear in mind, a lot of people used a forked version of Emerald on that grid, but many users instead used regular Emerald, and many others used Imprudence viewer, and some used Meerkat, and even Hippoviewer, among others. I was on that grid for two years before it closed. We had a couple of month's advance warning of that, and many people exported their builds to recreate on whatever grid took its place.

I had a HUGE, elaborate skybox there, more than 100 meters across and 4 stories tall, which I exported in large chunks using Imprudence viewer. I believe I had it rezzed at 4000 meters up on that grid, but when several of us formed a new grid -- this time using bog-standard, off-the-shelf opensim -- and I got a new sim there, I spent weeks getting my old, giant skybox recreated on the new grid, this time placing it at 5000 meters up. That was perhaps a year ago. I had NO trouble setting all the large sections in place up there, and then moving them around until they all aligned properly. This was largely using Imprudence viewer, or with a fork of Imprudence viewer (so far as I understand it, the main differences in the fork are some GUI things, and a few tweaks under the hood, but the guy who developed that fork is now officially in charge of running the dev of regular Imprudence, so they'll probably become more similar soon), and about the only issue I've had is that when you're a couple thousand meters up, it routinely rounds Z coordinates down a couple of decimal points, but that seems to be a problem with opensim in general.

I have since moved to yet another grid, which also uses bog-standard, off-the-shelf opensim. (There was a biiig split over in-world political issues. I won't bore you with the details, but we all got fed up with things and left, taking our sims with us.) The one who was hosting many of the sims on the second grid simply saved the OARs of all those sims, and recreated those sims for their owners on their own shiny, new grid. This was late last year. I've since added MORE (large!) rooms onto that build, placed more furniture in it, and whatnot, but for for all intents and purposes it is the same sim, on the same, standard opensim, as I had a year ago.

I routinely rezzed, and then moved, builds (such as furniture, wall art, etc) within this space at and above 5000 meters, without any difficulties. The ONLY real issue I had was that, setting a Home position a couple thousand meters up, you'd routinely arrive a meter or so lower than you were supposed to when you invoked Ctrl-Shift-H, placing you below the floor, unless you hovered a bit above the floor when setting Home position.

Again, all of this was mostly in Imprudence viewer, sometimes maybe Emerald viewer (if I needed to import something I'd exported in that). So your statement that no other viewers support rezzing things above 4096 meters on ANY grid flies completely in the face of my own direct experience. Remember, this was over a period of three years that I routinely saw and worked with builds above 4096 meters. Sometimes WELL above it.

I never wrote that "no other viewers support rezzing things above 4096 meters on ANY grid", I wrote "the Cool VL Viewer, like pretty much all viewers, won't allow you to rez things or set home above 4096m since this is SL's (and AFAIK, "normal" OpenSim servers') limit."

Plus, you are speaking about Emerald which doesn't exist any more and about Imprudence, which is an Aurora-compatible (and biased) viewer while I stated that "I do not support Aurora sim extensions (and breakages)".

You can write pages (and books) about it but only a pointer to an official OpenSim specification stating that rezzing above 4096m is supported could make me change my mind.

Until then, and since among a few thousands Cool VL Viewer users you are so far the only one complaining about it, I'll refrain from risking to break something which works fine for everyone else; mind you, such hard coded limits exist all over in the viewer code (blame Lindens for poor coding practices, not me...), and turning them into configurable limits takes time and a lot of very careful code review to ensure it doesn't break some features: AFAIK, Singularity once tried to support Aurora's larger sims and since backpedaled because of such breakages.