Mesh Viewers in Opensim

Usually in SL, we always hear about “Prims” and “Sculpts” but in the lastest months we hear about “Mesh Viewers” and “Mesh”.  Even I didn’t know myself what it is this about until I began to read about on the net. Then I made some test just getting some freebies and demos (in Second Life), I really have a good impression about the high detail of this objects and how easy is just wear them. Testing  mesh in Sl was fun but what about Opensim?, do we have a mesh support for it?.

We all know that Opensim is still under development and the current state is alpha (not even beta), so don’t be strange that mesh is still on development too. Here is some reference about Mesh in Opesim (extracted from their webpage):

“OpenSimulator supports the use of collada meshes. It must be noted that at the time of this writing, mesh support is still under development at Linden Labs, and they make changes to that all the time. Therefore, we can not guarantee that the current implementation of mesh support in OpenSim will be 100% compatible to the final version on SecondLife, once that gets rolled out. If you plan on using OpenSim to develop meshes for SecondLife, make sure you update Opensim frequently.”

So may be this means that mesh is well supported on Opensim and not in SL ?, currently I don’t know so much about it  but It is true and possible that the mesh is still under development at Lindens Labs. Mesh is a great thing and for those who have read the post about Blender, this is a really good opensource program for build Sculpts and Mesh. There are some opensource viewers(1) that you can use to see mesh in Opensim. Some suggested viewers for use and develop Mesh which are V3 (Specially FireStorm) here’s a small list of the V1 viewers (Please remember that V1 and V3 with mesh support will not work on very old computer, check my post about “Who is developing The SL Viewer 1 with Mesh Support ?“) that can be used to see Mesh in Opensim:

The CoolViewer:  This is one of the oldest SL Viewer’s that are still with us but the first one to include Mesh support for V1 Viewers, in the forum of cool viewer it says clearly why it was created: “The Cool SL Viewer strives to maintain a coherent (and pretty constant) UI, implements some new handy features that LL would take months to integrate, plugs all the regressions found in newer viewers, and provides a much stronger stability than LL’s own viewer”. 

The PhoenixViewer: Phoenix Viewer is based on Linden Lab’s Viewer Version 1.23.5 and Snowglobe 1.5. But also their support for Mesh in V1 Viewers is based from CoolViewer. Phoenix is one of the most and used viewers in Second Life (may be not on Opensim) and the main characteristic is that stability, easy to use gui (graphical user interface) and one of the faster (btw my favorite one).

The Astra Viewer:  An experimental Snowglobe 1.5 based Second Life Viewer focusing on performance, but also including all the usual conveniences. The Astra Viewer is a mix of the Imprudence Viewer with Mesh Support. Imprudence is one of the most used viewers for Opensim.

Speaking about V3 Viewers that can be used Opesim, I have just tested one :

Firestrom: It is based on Linden Lab’s Viewer versions 2 and 3, as in their webpage it says ”  it has added features to improve performance, increase usability, and generally enhance the user’s overall experience”. This is one of the most stable V3 viewer’s that I have tested before, and one of the most recommended to test mesh inworld.

It is possible that in the next post, I will try to find and test some Mesh objects in opensim (If I can find them or even I have to make some basic mesh in blender).

(1) if you use a new viewer that is so different from your main viewer in opensim, it could make some changes in your inventory or make the “cloud avatar”, for more details read about  “Cloud Avatars in Opensim” in this blog.

Is Phoenix 1.60 with mesh a mess ?

I don’t know if I am really prepared for the next step in SL and this means about Mesh. I have installed Phoenix lastest version that have support with mesh and even there are some improvements in the interface.

The addition of Mesh in SL and in the metaverse would mean many improvements in user’s looks, objects and other stuff (like terrain). But how different could be from Scuplts Prims and Mesh?, even would the mesh look better in FireStorm (This is V3 with mesh support) than Phoneix 1.60 ?.

What about running a test of the performance on both viewers?, this is one of the things that I want to do and it means to run the two programs and to see the difference of each one. But before to do that, I have better to “buy” or to get some Mesh freebies (even demos)  and to see how they look like on both SL Viewers.  To test the performance of the mesh in both viewers (as I added some screenshots how the mesh objects looks like on a non-mesh viewer), three mesh objects which are: a turkey, a chainsaw and a furniture. Here is the screenshot how the objects looks like on a non-mesh viewer (the only object who rezzed fine was the furniter, may be this is an sculpt mesh and not a mesh object):

This is how The Turkey, The Chainsaw and the Furniture looks like on a non-mesh viewer as you can see the only object that load very well was The Furniture but I presume this is a sculpt mesh.

Ok, now let’s see what happened when I log on SL with Phoenix Viewer with Mesh support to see how the mesh objects would look like:

Now The Turkey and The Chainsaw have a better look than using a non-mesh viewer but also The Furniture looks equal in Phoenix Viewer 1.60.

I would say that the mesh objects looks so much better than a sculpt mesh and even the turkey looks like a real one, even it looks like  it was taking out of the oven!, here is the screesnshot with the firestorm viewer:

There is not difference between how the mesh objects looks like in Phoenix or Firestorm, they look like the same!.

Comparing Phoenix Viewer 1.60 and Firestorm 3.2 I don’t see a big different when they load mesh objects but also the look also the same, but as an observation whn I logging to SL with Phoenix was faster than Firestorm and also some of my sculpt prims didn’t load or rezz very well on this V3 viewer (even my mask was looking so bad). I will stay on Phoenix until there is not support anymore then I move to a V3 viewer but I will need to check which one fits my needs. I could say that Phoenix with Mesh isn’t a mess, it was great job and I congratulate all the developers who put their efforts to bring mesh on this viewer (even they are working so hard on FireStorm).