Mesh, The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Addendum: Today 9-6-1 I heard Firestorm came out with a Mesh beta ... 'haven't tried it yet, but I will. Then I read Carrie Lexington's blog post about it just now and she has good things to say. Her pics looks good and she says the mesh outfits are fluid with no prim parts sticking out and the clothes move with the body.. wow.. that sounds great. I want! Anyway.. check her blog out here: http://slifefantastic.blogspot.com/ or direct link here: SLifeFantasticHere.
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Original Post
I'm on Phoenix viewer... I hope to stay on Phoenix until the other viewers become more stable and user friendly for me. I have tried, really I have. I see some good points in V2 or 3, whatever that I REALLY want for myself. But even still...




(WTF Mesh?)

So I thought I'd check out this "Mesh" everyone is talking about lately. They had some freebies and things with Mesh demos at a store so I went with a friend to check it out. What I saw amounted to avatars with boxes on them. That was seriously what I saw. Short avatars had oddly shaped colored box looking bodies and taller avatars were strange shaped boxes with their head sticking out. Nice. So a friend switch to a couple of different mesh enabled viewers and saw the outfits perfectly fine as intended. In another store the Mesh model looked like a big 3d oval ball. The moral of this story is.. if all is going Mesh some day.. Phoenix won't let me see it at least for now, meaning if a person wears the mesh outfit Phoenix viewer people wont see them. This can't be fun for the wearer of the Mesh outfit, or for the Phoenix viewer people. The logical question was could Phoenix viewer people see the um.. bits.. under or through the box?.. and the answer is no. God only knows what products will look like. So maybe Phoenix has an update or an adjustment to see Mesh but I have not heard about it yet and therefore probably most other people have not either. If anyone knows of this please please let me know.

Today is Phoenix Viewer's one year birthday. Jessica talks about this and all things SL and Phoenix on her site here: http://www.phoenixviewer.com/ direct link here: PhoenixHere. Thankfully she fully addresses the Mesh issue and also indicates Firestorm will soon work with Mesh. I am still not overjoyed with losing Phoenix to Firestorm or any other viewer at this point. For me Phoenix is easy to use, has all the wonderful features and interface I love and takes great pictures and machinima for me. Some of my fav features, specifics in radar, stability (a biggy) and photo quality is lost on some of the others at this point. Maybe viewer changes are being released before they are ready???

Blogger Seraphin did a wonderful interview and got a pretty good explanation of Mesh out of an exceptional SL builder Maxwell Graff here: http://seraphimsl.com/?p=6322 or direct link here: SeraphimHere.

Firestorm Preview Build out Jan. 31st

More Viewer Changes Coming up for Kara

I was about to panic when I learned that LL is wanting to do away with all non- sanctioned viewers and 1x code viewers that includes my beloved Phoenix, as they have big plans for V2 and would like people to be on that. The rumor is that within three to four months LL is removing the "search" feature from these other viewers which would in essence kill the use-ablity and make everyone have to switch. But I was told by a friend who seems to know all, that we are not to worry. Phoenix is working on Firestorm which will have as many features of Phoenix as possible including the radar that I love and need for exploring with slow friends. It's his understanding Firestorm should be ready for release by the time LL makes the changes.

Another friend provided me this link to video on the subject specifically around 4:00 and 27:00times. January 11th Rezzed.TV held a taped interview with Jessica Lyon of Phoenix, on "The Phoenix Hour"-check it out here: http://rezzed.tv/2011/01/the-phoenix-hour-11th-january-2011/ or PhoenixIntvHere.

Firestorm will try to keep us happy and even add some nice features such as media on a prim and others. So I am not going to panic and just be mentally prepared for more changes.

BUT ...I would like LL to know that I would love to be able to use their viewer and would actually feel more protected on it, but can they PLEASE make it more user friendly and have some of the special features I love that seem to be missing from V2 but Phoenix and some others have? I could make them a list. I even ran into a noob not very old saying they had to switch to Phoenix as V2 was too hard to learn. Anyway.. be prepared for more changes soon if you are not a V2 user.

The Phoenix Has Risen!!! Phoenix Viewer---Thank God!!!

Ok, after all my fussing and whining about Emerald and my fears about it, yet sticking with it to the end, the Phoenix has emerged!!!! It's great, it's like Emerald, it's supposed to be safe. I am so happy. I just downloaded and tried it when all kinds of info started pouring in about it... Here is some:

"From the ashes….
Posted on September 3, 2010 by jessicalyonsl
From the ashes… the Phoenix has risen.
My name is Jessica Lyon. My goal during my time with the Emerald Project, was always to give the users what they want. That goal has never and will never change. I’m very happy to announce, it continues…
A few days ago, I assembled a team of developers to work on a new viewer. Some who were originally Emerald developers, some who were not. All are respected reputable residents in the SecondLife Community. The goal was simple, to provide users with what they want and do it transparently.
I’m am very proud to announce the launch of the Phoenix Viewer. This project, has started off simple, with it’s initial release of a safe clone of the Emerald viewer. Users want Emerald features, you shall have them. We have big plans to expand to the Snowstorm project as well. We have already applied for the TPVD, to which we have no doubt we will be accepted in a timely fashion. We have already started making in world groups for support, (Phoenix Viewer Support), beta testing etc. There is much more to do… however…
This Viewer is ready for use by you, right now!
For this project, I insist on, and everyone on this team insists on 100% public transparency in EVERYTHING we do. We have already established a public IRC Dev chat, public repo and are working on much much more.
Our developers are; (in alphabetical order), Dakun Flux, Dimentox Travanti, Jessica Lyon, Kitty Barnett, LordGregGreg Back, Techwolf Lupindo, Tonya Souther, Vortex Saito, Wickman Gibbs, with more to come.
Our Lead Developers are: Dimentox Travanti, LordGregGreg Back, Techwolf Lupindo, Tonya Souther.
Ed Merryman will be leading our support team: Aleia Sapphire, bee Baroque, Damian Zhaoying, Ed Merryman, Marybeth Oceanlane, Mindy Spiritor, Nisa Maverick, PixelProphet Lane, Toy LaFollette, Vortex Saito, Whirly Fizzle, Wolfspirit Magic.
Our website is still in progress, however we have up the required links. http://phoenixviewer.com .
More information here http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/wiki
Downloads. http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/wiki/Betadownloads .
Public repo http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/repository
I am very pleased and excited about this project, and I hope that you will be too.
Sincerely,
Jessica Lyon and the Phoenix Viewer Development Team.