Black Dragon Viewer

[NiranV Dean]

Starting this off in the new Virtual Verse Forum with the newly released Animesh Update. Wohooo!

Get the Viewer that dares to be different (a bit).

Description:
Blablabla, [insert PR nonsense], blabla it's the best Viewer ever. Blabla, [insert more PR nonsense]. Makes Second Life look good.


Pictures:
We all love pictures.

Spoiler

Stuff in Motion:




Links:
Black Dragon Development Blog
Bugtracker
Discord Channel
Patreon

 

[Sean Gorham]

I absolutely love the built-in poser. It makes adjusting animations so much easier!

 

[NiranV Dean]

You're not the only one. I love it too.

 

[Artemis]

I do a lot of photography in SL and was debating on using this because I hear it's fantastic for that. How good is it for every day things though compared to Firestorm (my main viewer, like probably everyone else). I'd prefer not to have to switch viewers every time I want to take a shot.

 

[NiranV Dean]

Solely depends on what you need.

Basic every usage is just like any other Viewer.

If you need specialized tools however there are none for every day usage. The Viewer has mostly the basic "LL" feature set. Meaning no AO, no extensive radar, no area search, no copy-paste object parameters and so on. Just the basic LL stuff (not counting the align tool which is a nice thing), the only improvements in that regard come from the UI such as added right-click menu entries across all menus for consistency for instance.

It's hard to tell whether the Viewer is something for everyday usage. I've been using it the past 5 (+1 as Nirans Viewer) years (+ another few as Kirstens before i opened my own Viewer which had a similar strict feature set) and i've been doing everything from building, animating, scripting to visiting places and doing less content creation oriented things. I can't say it's not suited for every day usage but i also can't say the LL Viewer isn't. Your best bet is simply trying it out and looking through stuff yourself, there are a multitude of ways to get help (most of them involve simply asking me, inworld or discord preferred, you can even find me in your friendlist as long as you are on BD just for that matter)

Besides, the Viewer needs a decently equipped computer (roughly the past 5-6 years old stuff, been having 6 year old CPU and GPU for almost the entire development cycle but 64bit OS and a CPU that supports AVX is absolutely necessary for the most recent versions) to make the most of its primary features without directly making it unusably laggy the moment you think about toggling any option and the development cycle is also decently fast and sees new updates every week or two (sometimes three) depending on the needs and my mood.

You'll most likely want to start by checking out my Youtube channel and watching the "Experiment" videos which all showcase one or more special features of the Viewer.

I'd also highly recommend visiting the blog and having a read, usually write a thing or two about each update. [Black Dragon Blog]
You'll also most likely want to have a read of these: [Movement Controls] and [Alpha Masking]

 

[Artemis]

I gave the viewer a shot and messed around with it a bit, but I think it's lacking some features that I'd consider critical now, primarily the AO and radar. Most of all though, it seems to be all in on the Viewer 2.0 UI paradigm which I honestly hate. Maybe it's just me being a wretched oldbie unkind to change, but the Viewer 2.0 UI seemed a significant step down from the original. Between losing the muscle-memory based pie-menu in favor of a rectangle chart you have to search and the chat being moved from being simply on your screen to hidden behind a whole new window that has to be opened, I seriously can't stand it and constantly had the urge to log out. I was also reminded of how awful the default SL camera placement is.

Still, the photography tools are amazing, especially the built in poser which as a better UI than the attachment based ones I use. So I may use it just for photo shoots.

 

[Tris]

I gave the viewer a shot and messed around with it a bit, but I think it's lacking some features that I'd consider critical now, primarily the AO and radar. Most of all though, it seems to be all in on the Viewer 2.0 UI paradigm which I honestly hate. Maybe it's just me being a wretched oldbie unkind to change, but the Viewer 2.0 UI seemed a significant step down from the original. Between losing the muscle-memory based pie-menu in favor of a rectangle chart you have to search and the chat being moved from being simply on your screen to hidden behind a whole new window that has to be opened, I seriously can't stand it and constantly had the urge to log out. I was also reminded of how awful the default SL camera placement is.

Still, the photography tools are amazing, especially the built in poser which as a better UI than the attachment based ones I use. So I may use it just for photo shoots.

Pretty much sure that somewhere in the prefs there is an option to enable that Pie-Menu you speak of. Not totally sure though, never wanted to use it

 

[NiranV Dean]

There is indeed an option for pie menus, it can be found in Preferences - Interface - Use Action Wheel.

I'm unsure whether you'll like it though. It is a complete and i mean a total 100% redo of the original pie menu. It's bigger, it shows sub-menus, it's completely reorganized to feature a logical and consistent layout (to make sure as many options stay in the very same place at all times across all menus). Besides it's the single most crashy feature in the entire Viewer. You can toggle all shitniz and turn the Viewer upside down but the moment you turn on Pie Menu all bets are off, any right click you do (especially those on avatars) can and will absolutely and totally 100% end in a crash at some point, a crash i could never reproduce but i know for a fact is happening (lot's of people already reported right-click crashes with pie menu enabled). Besides it being a big pile of unfun crashes you'd probably like it that is if you got used to the new layout. I'd highly recommend against using it though.

AO was and will always stay a big red flag for me, unless LL gets their ass up and gives us developers a way to properly and directly communicate with the server (specifically with the new server side AO) to replace animations server side i refuse to implement an AO. So much that i have gone up and beyond and scripted my own custom, free, opensource server side AO, it's faster, more reliable, technically never fails unless you make a configuration mistake and works everywhere even when not worn as long as you've at least attached it once every login session, it's also very light and takes up only ~45kb when configured, that's far less than most AO's.

The "Radar" and i assume you mean Firestorm's extensive radar features (because any viewer has a perfectly working one) are just as much a red flag as an AO. I do not support stalking features or those that make it easier to do so, in any way.

The SL camera placement and once again i assume you mean the one found in my Viewer is in no way the default camera at all. Every preset is custom made to offer a selection of usable presets rather than some random values LL got from what was presumably a lucky wheel (like so many things *caugh* depth-of-field *caugh*)

Chat on the other hand can be configured to act almost identical to that of Viewer 1, in any Viewer 2.
Select the local chat tab, click the diagonal arrow to undock it,

put it in the left lower corner below the local chat popups

go to preferences and enable the "hide on focus loss" and "hide on send chat" options to make chat pop up when you hit enter and vanish again when you send chat,

collapse it to a single chatbar and you essentially get the same as before,

just the chat popups are not going across the entire screen and IM's remain separated for organization purposes both of which i think were the worst features of V1 chat (besides the entire V1 chat in general being tabbed as it is now once again.... ugh). I do share your hate for the "Conversations" window, it is almost always on screen and is simply annoying but i'm sure the same was true in Viewer 1 (which is one of many reasons i hated it)

About the Viewer using the V2/3 UI. That's just how it is. I'm happy the V1 is gone. It was limited, it was big, it was clunky, it looked dirty (as in not clean) and it wasn't in any way more practical than the V2 UI now, mostly because V1 and V2 UI are almost identical still, mostly it's skin was changed, everything else has been basically reverted to what it was again after everyone complained about the Sidebar, including the "new" chat which is just the old chat with a new name-tag on it...after people complained about a perfectly fine and much better chat system than in any MMO i've seen so far. Even though i hate saying this but i've reverted some parts of the UI as well mostly just to reduce the abnormal spacing LL has put between each UI widget for whatever reason.... *caugh* Windlight editors *caugh*

I do hope though you'll find the poser useful, i'm going to add even more stuff to it soon including (hopefully) being able to pose animesh, everything else is a secret for now ooooohh mysteryyyyyy...

 

[Artemis]

There is indeed an option for pie menus, it can be found in Preferences - Interface - Use Action Wheel.

I'm unsure whether you'll like it though. It is a complete and i mean a total 100% redo of the original pie menu. It's bigger, it shows sub-menus, it's completely reorganized to feature a logical and consistent layout (to make sure as many options stay in the very same place at all times across all menus). Besides it's the single most crashy feature in the entire Viewer. You can toggle all shitniz and turn the Viewer upside down but the moment you turn on Pie Menu all bets are off, any right click you do (especially those on avatars) can and will absolutely and totally 100% end in a crash at some point, a crash i could never reproduce but i know for a fact is happening (lot's of people already reported right-click crashes with pie menu enabled). Besides it being a big pile of unfun crashes you'd probably like it that is if you got used to the new layout. I'd highly recommend against using it though.

Thanks, that's helpful. I'd prefer to have it on, even if it's crashy. You can really zip through the pie menu quickly with muscle memory in ways you can't do with the newer version. Now that you mention it, I think Firestorm had similar problems with their pie menu implementation.

AO was and will always stay a big red flag for me, unless LL gets their ass up and gives us developers a way to properly and directly communicate with the server (specifically with the new server side AO) to replace animations server side i refuse to implement an AO. So much that i have gone up and beyond and scripted my own custom, free, opensource server side AO, it's faster, more reliable, technically never fails unless you make a configuration mistake and works everywhere even when not worn as long as you've at least attached it once every login session, it's also very light and takes up only ~45kb when configured, that's far less than most AO's.

Yeah I get there's problems with it, and a lot of it is on LL, but it's damn convenient to not have to manage an additional attachment. Especially since I switch avatars a lot. What's this AO you're referring to that works without needing to be worn?

The "Radar" and i assume you mean Firestorm's extensive radar features (because any viewer has a perfectly working one) are just as much a red flag as an AO. I do not support stalking features or those that make it easier to do so, in any way.

I'm just talking about the radar that shows people nearby in the sim, and also alerts on enter/exit chat range enter/exit sim. Calling it a "stalking feature" is a bit much there.

The SL camera placement and once again i assume you mean the one found in my Viewer is in no way the default camera at all. Every preset is custom made to offer a selection of usable presets rather than some random values LL got from what was presumably a lucky wheel (like so many things *caugh* depth-of-field *caugh*)

I'm talking about the camera that hovers startlingly far away from the AVs head when walking around. It's actually the default in Firestorm as well, but it does have some way to adjust it to bring it closer. Helps in navigating environments so that your camera isn't stuck in the ceiling. By default the camera has the head placed about 50% high up the screen, whereas after adjustment I have it more like 80% high up the screen. This sticks even while walking around. Maybe your viewer can do this adjustment too, I might have just missed it.

Chat on the other hand can be configured to act almost identical to that of Viewer 1, in any Viewer 2.
Select the local chat tab, click the diagonal arrow to undock it,

put it in the left lower corner below the local chat popups

go to preferences and enable the "hide on focus loss" and "hide on send chat" options to make chat pop up when you hit enter and vanish again when you send chat,

collapse it to a single chatbar and you essentially get the same as before,

just the chat popups are not going across the entire screen and IM's remain separated for organization purposes both of which i think were the worst features of V1 chat (besides the entire V1 chat in general being tabbed as it is now once again.... ugh). I do share your hate for the "Conversations" window, it is almost always on screen and is simply annoying but i'm sure the same was true in Viewer 1 (which is one of many reasons i hated it)

Yeah that's pretty good, thanks for the detailed tutorial! Only downside is it means you have to re-expand the Nearby Chat window to get chat history, whereas previous it was just a Ctrl + H key-press. But that's pretty minor.

About the Viewer using the V2/3 UI. That's just how it is. I'm happy the V1 is gone. It was limited, it was big, it was clunky, it looked dirty (as in not clean) and it wasn't in any way more practical than the V2 UI now, mostly because V1 and V2 UI are almost identical still, mostly it's skin was changed, everything else has been basically reverted to what it was again after everyone complained about the Sidebar, including the "new" chat which is just the old chat with a new name-tag on it...after people complained about a perfectly fine and much better chat system than in any MMO i've seen so far. Even though i hate saying this but i've reverted some parts of the UI as well mostly just to reduce the abnormal spacing LL has put between each UI widget for whatever reason.... *caugh* Windlight editors *caugh*

Your default UI is pretty sleek, but I managed to get it even more so with Firestorm using non 2.0 viewer structures. It basically had zero permanent UI elements on screen save for a Quick Preferences button, a notifications button, and a button for the new "Favorites" UI thing Firestorm did, which were both tiny and stuck in the corner. The navigation URL box was entirely hidden and the favorite landmarks had no background so they took up very little space. It just has one toolbar worth of buttons and such at the top. The difference is pretty minor though and I like how cut down your UI is by default.

I do hope though you'll find the poser useful, i'm going to add even more stuff to it soon including (hopefully) being able to pose animesh, everything else is a secret for now ooooohh mysteryyyyyy...

Nice! I notice the poser does bento stuff which is fantastic, none of the scripted HUDs handle that and if they do they do it in weird ways (I'm assuming because of LSL limitations) like involving combining hundreds of microanimations. Only downside is it doesn't seem to pose others, which I figure may be a bridge too far since it'd require sending permissions. Is the poser local or can other users see the adjustments?

 

[NiranV Dean]

Thanks, that's helpful. I'd prefer to have it on, even if it's crashy. You can really zip through the pie menu quickly with muscle memory in ways you can't do with the newer version. Now that you mention it, I think Firestorm had similar problems with their pie menu implementation.

And here i thought FS fixed it eons ago.

Yeah I get there's problems with it, and a lot of it is on LL, but it's damn convenient to not have to manage an additional attachment. Especially since I switch avatars a lot. What's this AO you're referring to that works without needing to be worn?

I'm talking about a HUD attachment that's super small and does most of it's stuff in a menu rather than with big buttons on screen, it's scripted as server side AO which means it replaces animations directly on server level, meaning the script isn't constantly checking your avatar status and then plays its animations on top of the default ones but rather directly replaces the UUIDs on the server making them play instead of the default ones, this is the fastest most reliable way of doing it, does not require the AO to constantly monitor you and most importantly does not require any additional communication to the server besides the "replace X animation with Y" once for the entire login session after which you can simply take it off, so it works regardless of your outfit/avatar. (again only if you've worn it at least once) You can find the AO here:
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/NirAO-Server-Side-Animation-Overrider/6310433
If you need any help or got any problems just tell me, not the first time i accidentally blew up the AO by disabling "Mono". Hehe.

I'm just talking about the radar that shows people nearby in the sim, and also alerts on enter/exit chat range enter/exit sim. Calling it a "stalking feature" is a bit much there.

I was talking about Firestorm's super radar that gives you an extensive list of basically everything, as if you combined the entire profile into a single line and crammed it all in somehow. "Stalking Features" was mostly aimed at this specific radar and a few other features they seem so proud of that have caused me a lot of headache in the past 6 years. Namely "LookAt Names". Grgrgrl.

I'm talking about the camera that hovers startlingly far away from the AVs head when walking around. It's actually the default in Firestorm as well, but it does have some way to adjust it to bring it closer. Helps in navigating environments so that your camera isn't stuck in the ceiling. By default the camera has the head placed about 50% high up the screen, whereas after adjustment I have it more like 80% high up the screen. This sticks even while walking around. Maybe your viewer can do this adjustment too, I might have just missed it.

Ah so you were talking about other Viewer's default camera presets. The default "rear view" in BD is a tad closer and lower around head/neck so you still have a decently okay look over your avatar. And yea now that you mention it....ffff i knew i forgot something. You can adjust all camera presets in Preferences - Camera, there are lots of camera options including the ones for presets if you scroll down.

Yeah that's pretty good, thanks for the detailed tutorial! Only downside is it means you have to re-expand the Nearby Chat window to get chat history, whereas previous it was just a Ctrl + H key-press. But that's pretty minor.

Yea... that, you're lucky it opens the chatbar at all... i think it was broken for 4 years and no one told me... and this CHUI how they call this cancer of a chat system doesn't like if you mess with it. I'm kinda happy it doesn't do this close/reopen position slide thing anymore... i wanna slap some lindens for this atrocious monster they label a chat system. It's bugridden... and GOD have you seen the default look of it? HAVE YOU?! The chatbar is offset half its height below the expand button and there's so much space above it... completely unused. AHHHH!

Your default UI is pretty sleek, but I managed to get it even more so with Firestorm using non 2.0 viewer structures. It basically had zero permanent UI elements on screen save for a Quick Preferences button, a notifications button, and a button for the new "Favorites" UI thing Firestorm did, which were both tiny and stuck in the corner. The navigation URL box was entirely hidden and the favorite landmarks had no background so they took up very little space. It just has one toolbar worth of buttons and such at the top. The difference is pretty minor though and I like how cut down your UI is by default.

Yea the "no-background" thing... i saw that when i saw pictures of Firestorm. It drove me nuts, that kind of stuff is the definition of broken to me. I've added other ways to make the UI as minuscule as possible though, without destroying the skin. You can right click the navigationbar and disable the favoritesbar, this saves you roughly another 20 pixels, it's basically on par with the V1 topbar though with much more functionality and without the menus clipping into everything else and overlapping. You can also put the toolbar buttons at the top (they should be by default) and if you want to save even more space on them you can change them to "mini icons", it's a leftover from.... earlier UI's.

Frantically looks out for Adeon

This was the UI 4 years ago.

Nice! I notice the poser does bento stuff which is fantastic, none of the scripted HUDs handle that and if they do they do it in weird ways (I'm assuming because of LSL limitations) like involving combining hundreds of microanimations. Only downside is it doesn't seem to pose others, which I figure may be a bridge too far since it'd require sending permissions. Is the poser local or can other users see the adjustments?

The poser is fully local only. You cannot pose others because the all mighty Oz Linden himself wagged his finger at me and told me to disallow it. (I was actually working on posing others and i'm basically doing it again now for animesh) I've offered the Poser to LL and they want to implement it but they require me to add an animation export which i'm not willing to tackle, i want server side support instead before anything else. So after some hefty rework of the Poser and all its features we're now basically in limbo with it as i don't feel like spending a giant metric fuckton of time on a feature that is nothing but a cheap excuse for the real deal and a "sorry gift" for the missing server side support.

 

[Artemis]

I was talking about Firestorm's super radar that gives you an extensive list of basically everything, as if you combined the entire profile into a single line and crammed it all in somehow. "Stalking Features" was mostly aimed at this specific radar and a few other features they seem so proud of that have caused me a lot of headache in the past 6 years. Namely "LookAt Names". Grgrgrl.

Haha the LookAt Names thing, number one source of ridiculous drama. Yeah I'm with you there. I mostly just like to have feedback on who's in the sim and who's in chat range, and Firestorm's radar system is great for that.

Ah so you were talking about other Viewer's default camera presets. The default "rear view" in BD is a tad closer and lower around head/neck so you still have a decently okay look over your avatar. And yea now that you mention it....ffff i knew i forgot something. You can adjust all camera presets in Preferences - Camera, there are lots of camera options including the ones for presets if you scroll down.

Well I was talking about how Firestorm's is by default (though not after I adjusted it) but also how yours is by default (hence why I'd said I forgotten about how bad it is). Maybe you'd attempted to adjust this, but for me the camera's origin point is still hovering about a meter over my avatar's head. Maybe because you've got a presumably large looking Sergal av you don't quite notice it as much? Or is there a way to adjust the height of the camera? All I've found thus far in the menus is things to adjust FOV and such, or things that can move the camera but only if you stay still.

Here's how the default Camera looks for me in Black Dragon:

Yea... that, you're lucky it opens the chatbar at all... i think it was broken for 4 years and no one told me... and this CHUI how they call this cancer of a chat system doesn't like if you mess with it. I'm kinda happy it doesn't do this close/reopen position slide thing anymore... i wanna slap some lindens for this atrocious monster they label a chat system. It's bugridden... and GOD have you seen the default look of it? HAVE YOU?! The chatbar is offset half its height below the expand button and there's so much space above it... completely unused. AHHHH!

Chat has always been a mess in SL, which is ironic since that's ostensibly all SL is meant to do.

Yea the "no-background" thing... i saw that when i saw pictures of Firestorm. It drove me nuts, that kind of stuff is the definition of broken to me. I've added other ways to make the UI as minuscule as possible though, without destroying the skin. You can right click the navigationbar and disable the favoritesbar, this saves you roughly another 20 pixels, it's basically on par with the V1 topbar though with much more functionality and without the menus clipping into everything else and overlapping. You can also put the toolbar buttons at the top (they should be by default) and if you want to save even more space on them you can change them to "mini icons", it's a leftover from.... earlier UI's.

I actually prefer the older UI haha, it's pretty good now though. I just like to have as little UI as possible on screen at any time and depend on keystrokes to get what I need.

The poser is fully local only. You cannot pose others because the all mighty Oz Linden himself wagged his finger at me and told me to disallow it. (I was actually working on posing others and i'm basically doing it again now for animesh) I've offered the Poser to LL and they want to implement it but they require me to add an animation export which i'm not willing to tackle, i want server side support instead before anything else. So after some hefty rework of the Poser and all its features we're now basically in limbo with it as i don't feel like spending a giant metric fuckton of time on a feature that is nothing but a cheap excuse for the real deal and a "sorry gift" for the missing server side support.

Yeah I figured that might be the case, presumably because Viewers can't prompt for permission, so you could potentially put people in poses they don't agree to or whatever. It's a shame though because the poser is awesome.

 

[NiranV Dean]

Well this is the default BD "Rear View" camera for me:

I could be wrong but the camera height also scales both with your actual avatar height and your hover height so for different people it will look a bit different but it's roughly the same.

This is the default BD "Shoulder View" i use all day

Also you can see the camera options there. Generally you want to adjust Z Focus and Z Offset to get your camera higher/lower. Focus for the point your camera is looking at and Offset for the camera's position itself. You'd want to lower both to press the camera and focus down.

Personally i don't use the Rear View ever, i find it ugly and stupid.

Here's a really shitty and old introduction to the camera presets.

 

[Artemis]

Personally i don't use the Rear View ever, i find it ugly and stupid.

Here's a really shitty and old introduction to the camera presets.

Perfect, yeah, I just didn't understand how the options in the Camera section linked to different view presets in the Camera UI. I think that fixes a lot of my quibbles and complaints, beyond the things you've not wanted to implement. I'm looking forward to getting an opportunity to do some shots with it.

 

[NiranV Dean]

Black Dragon Update 3.3.1 released.

 

[Myficals]

Are Godrays still buried in the viewer somewhere and if so, what do I have to do to play with them? The only links I could find to guide were to the old SLU thread and that, sadly, is defunct.

(Yes, yes, I'm fiddling with BD, even after everything I've said in the past. Fight me, I dare you. )

 

[Lucierda Solari]

Well, this happened after quitting out of Black Dragon for the first time:

Faulting application name: Black Dragon.exe, version: 6.0.0.42655, time stamp: 0x5bb45b91
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.23714, time stamp: 0x58bf89e8
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000004f23c
Faulting process id: 0x1a00
Faulting application start time: 0x01d45e88ee93c5f3
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Black Dragon\Black Dragon.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: feef1a6c-ca8c-11e8-b21a-e03f49b20ffb

 

[NiranV Dean]

Are Godrays still buried in the viewer somewhere and if so, what do I have to do to play with them? The only links I could find to guide were to the old SLU thread and that, sadly, is defunct.

(Yes, yes, I'm fiddling with BD, even after everything I've said in the past. Fight me, I dare you. )

Godrays are still in the Viewer. They are called Volumetric Lighting and can be found both in the Machinima Sidebar and Preferences - Display as main shader setting, it's options can be found right below it's expandable tab. All you need is running and functional Deferred Rendering, enabled Shadows and a Windlight that in best case has some kind of atmospherics and maybe a sun that isn't coming straight down from above, sunsets are basically made for this.

Also, who are you again? I'm not sure what you've said and i'm probably sure i don't want to know anymore but regardless of what someone said in the past i don't refuse helping someone who asks for it, obviously there are exceptions to this. I'd never help someone who killed my family.

Well, this happened after quitting out of Black Dragon for the first time:

Faulting application name: Black Dragon.exe, version: 6.0.0.42655, time stamp: 0x5bb45b91
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.23714, time stamp: 0x58bf89e8
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000004f23c
Faulting process id: 0x1a00
Faulting application start time: 0x01d45e88ee93c5f3
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Black Dragon\Black Dragon.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: feef1a6c-ca8c-11e8-b21a-e03f49b20ffb

Ugh, what's this? An error on close? I'm unsure why, i haven't seen this one being reported before but from googling about this issue it looks like it could be many things. Your Windows being broken (in need for a repair via Windows DVD), your drivers being broken (or too new... especially NVIDIA has issues with newer drivers lately, be careful with these), your ntdll.dll being broken or even missing among a few other things. Restarting windows, repairing windows, updating windows, reinstalling drivers (preferably older ones), disabling addons in Internet Explorer (seriously who uses that till, also i'm sure you use Windows 10, most likely) and replacing the ntdll.dll in case it is missing are all recommended ways of fixing this. What is weird though is that it happened on quitting (and i assume only once). I've seen people having scrambled graphics after quitting some Viewers (known issue for some cards) but this is definitely new.


~ Sorry that i took so long to answer. I was....um *ahem* deeply busy with something new and exciting i found and totally forgot time and of course i did the number one mistake of now spamming refresh every 5 minutes. It's always when i'm not looking.

 

[Artemis]

I've been using Black Dragon for the last few days, and the photo tools for it are awesome. I'm really in love with the poser tool, and I've used it pretty heavily for my last few photos. The post-processing and machinima tab is pretty awesome too. Really great job on that stuff.

One last quibble, I don't know if this a firestorm feature, but is there a way to turn off group chat for certain groups? I'm in a few clothing store type groups that I don't really care about the chat for and I have to spend the first 20 minutes or so closing group chats from these groups before I get some peace.

Also here's some of the shots I've done using Black Dragon in the last few days, making heavy use of the poser tool and the machinima tab (though there's some photoshop touch ups too)

 

[NiranV Dean]

There is no option in BD to disable certain group chats. Just hide their popup chats for either all or none.

I'd really like LL to get onto that one. Any clientside implementations are hacky at best and don't really solve the issue at hand. Besides if it was done server side they'd also save some bandwidth. Less people who participate in chat means less bandwidth wasted with delivering messages which frees up potentially more space for people who actively want to take part in chatting.


Also nice pictures but the last one seems to be missing Ambient Occlusion, it cuts into the realism of the picture, especially the shadowed parts behind you look unnatural with the ever-flat shadowing, the objects in shadows show no depth. I have to note though i'm absolutely not a fan of the image noise filter that you seem to use. If there's one option in any game i always disable it's definitely Post Process Noise/Grain. Might just be Volumetric Lighting though if you used it with lower resolutions.

Nonetheless they are great shots especially for your first ones. Here's a teaser for the upcoming update.

 

[NiranV Dean]

Black Dragon Update 3.3.2 released.

Bugfixes, UI improvements, crashfix and the ability to pose Animesh.