v2 Gripes

You may have noticed that I'm something of a Second Life Viewer 2 apologist (look it up). While others decry the user interface (so, its different), the lack of features (more than you had in the v1 viewers, actually), and the idea of change in general (not all of you are whiners, but it sure seems like most of you are) I celebrate the growth we've seen in viewer technology over the years.

That doesn't mean I'm wholly in love with v2, though. Change can breed both positive and negagtive. For example, every time I change my graphics levels, I have to go to the Advanced menu (previously enabled via Me > Preferences > Advanced), open up the Debug settings, and type in rendervolumeLODFactor (or start to ... it auto-populates) and change it from the default 1.125 to my preference of 4.000 so sculpties properly rez fast and at distance. Every. Time. Why can't the viewer remember this setting? Maybe a third party viewer solves this problem. I haven't looked as I continue to find the Official viewer the most stable and speedy. Trade offs, I suppose, but I still want it all.

And I want to keep my Windlight settings. The new viewer update system has it's benefits, like keeping relatively experience-free users in touch with important updates. But every time an update occurs, the 400-some Windlight definition files that I keep installed get wiped out. So for these pictures I had forgotten that I had but a limited selection from which to choose.

The clever changing huts at the Murray Info Hub. Sometimes I like to come here for a change of pace to change my clothes or to just for a change. This is an "overflow" Infohub and new Residents are seldom shunted here after leaving Help Island post orientation.

The Murray Infohub has places to relax, like this hammock my friend is relaxing in and a nice little beach bar, as well as the changing huts. Do a little exploring and you'll also find some treasure and floaty tubes for play.

While the 32 standard options were okay for these pictures, I would have preferred other, more dramatic settings. I didn't do any extra customization aside from cranking the graphics quality and draw distance, though for the second picture the "default" clouds are rather annoying. If anyone has some pull with The Lab, can you get them to stop erasing all my Windlight files? At least I have some hopes that when support for Windlight changes by parcel comes to the main release viewer, we'll have more choices.