Lumiya SL Viewer for Android Mobile Adds WindLight Support

There's a new update to Lumiya, the popular third party Second Life viewer for Android phones and tablets (download on Google Play here for $2.95), and it's full of light: WindLight, to be exact, SL's atmospheric renderer, which Lumiya creator Alina Lyvette just added basic support for. The screenshot above is how Lumiya displays a Second Life day; after the break is a screenshot of what it looks like during SL nights, beneath a glowing moon.

“WindLight support is obviously limited,” Ms. Lyvette allows to me. “In general, the design goal was to make it look reasonable with default WindLight settings on the mainland – like, day should be brighter than night. I didn't attempt to reproduce complex atmospheric effects (fog, scattering, etc. etc.)” Those effects aren't available at this stage, but she does plan to add support for parcel WindLight, so users can control the day/night settings for their home.

As with previous versions of Lumiya (which I've blogged about before), this represents a major leap in Second Life technology for mobile devices, which Alina Lyvette is almost single-handedly driving forward. (For years, consumer attention and dollars have been shifting inexorably to mobile as desktop and laptop sales plummet, but SL creator Linden Lab has done little or nothing to support mobile for its core product.)

At any rate, here's more of what the new Lumiya does (and doesn't do) with WindLight, straight from the creator's e-mail to me:

What works:

• Light direction and brightness, depending on the the sun and moon position.
• Sim time override
• Sky color, clouds, and haze on the horizon
• Stars

What doesn't work:

• Only one day preset exists, with settings roughly identical to SL default day
• Celestial bodies are not rendered
• Clouds look very different from the desktop viewer (my initial attempt to reproduce those totally failed for performance reasons, so I've settled with much simpler implementation).

Speaking of how Lumiya looks in the daytime, you might have noticed the screenshot features anti-aliasing. (Geekspeak for “no jaggedy graphics”.) That's because Alina Lyvette uses FXAA to get that effect, but acknowledges it's not a perfect solution: “Despite that it is thought to be among the fastest algorithms possible, it is still awful on mobile devices, performance-wise. So it's off by default, and to be honest, given the typically high screen resolution on modern phones, there's not much difference in image quality. On tablets, though, it is very noticeable.”

Innovation, iteration, transparency – give Alina Lyvette credit for moving 3D virtual world technology forward. And if you use Android and Second Life, at least consider giving Alina Lyvette your daily coffee money.

Images courtesy Alina Lyvette. Hat tip: SL Redditor Kaleaon.

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Comments

[Mondy]

I've been using Lumiya for some time, and before it even rendered avatars as more than a dummy and is amazing to run on a mobile tablet. I've run SL on a net book which was a terrible experience but given the limitations,Lumiya is remarkable.
Not only that but the developer is pretty open to feedback and has discussed things with me via email several times. Updates are pretty timely as well

[Metacam Oh]

Does it strike anyone else as strange that the only innovations going on with the SL Product are by anyone other than Linden Lab? Third parties can get SL running on mobile OS but Linden can't? I have to wonder why they still have all these draconian policies in place regarding modding their product and development when they don't even want to be bothered with doing anything new with Second Life. I just don't get the policy.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

@Metacam
- Materials
- Server Side Appearance
- User Interest Lists to speed up rezzing (in testing)
- User Experiences (coming very soon)
LL are busier than ever in the last few years improving their product.

Incidentally LL have had SL running on mobile - but they would want to do something with the UI before exploring that further - and they appreciate how good Lumiya is as an alternative as well.

[andy]

Why cant i log into second life ?. I just joined second life,I'm using a samsung galaxy grand prime, but each time I use lumiya app all it does is search for five minutes then saids can't connect. Thanks.

[Mydia nowles]

How do you get dress

[eddiewolf]

How I get to talk and to continue with my 3D active? In my tablet, when I talk to someone, I can't seeing the other avatars.