New World Notes

Linden Lab Couldn't Take Over Firestorm Without Killing Firestorm

The third party Firestorm viewer is used by about 90% of the regular Second Life user base, making any update to Second Life basically irrelevant until it's compatible with Firestorm. So that means Linden Lab should just hire the all-volunteer Firestorm team, right? Wrong, argues Bavid Dailey in Comments:

If Linden Lab were to take over the Firestorm viewer, they'd break it. Corporations do things differently to how volunteer groups do. Nothing kills developer enthusiasm better than meetings. I have no direct knowledge of how the Firestorm team works, but I hazard a guess that there are a minimal number of meetings. Also, Firestorm volunteers know that they are focused on a clear objective. Corporations tend to have other agendas, and upper management tends to change agendas without consultation, right of appeal - or much logic in many cases. Don't kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Perhaps toss them some gold filings from time to time....

This sounds right, which would mean that we are stuck in our current state: Highly profitable Linden Lab being totally dependent on non-profit volunteers. But yes, agree with the "gold filings" point. When is Linden Lab going to throw the Firestorm team an all-expenses-paid Thank You party at Linden's HQ in San Francisco?

Why Do Volunteer Second Life Software Developers Do So Much Unpaid Labor to Support Nearly All of Linden Lab's Customers? Firestorm's Project Head Explains

It's probably the strangest symbiotic relationship in Silicon Valley: Linden Lab, the startup that's highly profitable from Second Life, open sourced its SL viewer software 12 years ago, and over time, various open source viewers have increased in popularity, among Second Life's user base. Firestorm, updated and debugged by dedicated team of volunteer SL users --  has become the most popular.

How popular? Far more popular than the official SL viewer put out by Linden Lab the company. So popular, in fact, that any update Linden Lab makes to its platform is effectively irrelevant unless it's supported by Firestorm.

Two years ago, project head Jessica Lyon tells me, "Firestorm was carrying somewhere around 72% of SL users. I've no idea what that metric is like today but I suspect it's higher now as many third party viewers around back then have dissolved." By a conservative estimate, 80-90% of SL users now use Firestorm.

In other words, an unpaid volunteer development team is providing the software for nearly the entire userbase of a highly profitable company. Which like I said, is pretty unprecedented.

"It's a rather unique situation for sure," Jessica agrees. "But is a matter of perspective how one looks at it. We see ourselves providing a better experience for 80-90% of the user population, rather than supporting a for-profit company without gains."

Firestorm hasn't even attempted to monetize its efforts, she adds:

Firestorm's Bakes on Mesh Reportedly Confusing Many, So Here's a Tutorial

Here's a valuable tutorial from Novata for using Bakes on Mesh with the Firestorm viewer. The volunteer Firestorm team recently released a version that's compatible with BOM, which optimizes mesh-based attachments in Second Life. According to reader Mondy, the update's left a lot of SLers confused:

Firestorm, SL's Most Popular Viewer by Far, Adds Bakes on Mesh Support

Linden Lab, the highly profitable for-profit company, released Bakes on Mesh, a feature which optimizes mesh-based attachments in Second Life, back in August. It hasn't generated much excitement from the community since then, but it now likely will: Because The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc., a non-profit corporation comprised of volunteer developers, just released an update to their Firestorm viewer with Bakes on Mesh Support:

The Bakes on Mesh release from Firestorm has been long awaited; apologies for that. This should be considered by all in SL a MAJOR UPDATE, and it is important that all our SL users upgrade to it. This update contains a lot of rendering-related changes from Linden Lab, without which you WILL be running into avatars that look badly broken to you.

The Firestorm viewer is by far the most popular among  active SL users. Which is to say any new Second Life feature created by Linden Lab the for-profit company is essentially unusable unless it's supported by the efforts of a volunteer non-profit. Which is a keen irony worth discussing further! But that's for next week. Meantime, go here for all the updates for the new version of Firestorm.

Support Black Dragon, the Viewer That Makes Second Life Look Amazing

Totally untouched Black Dragon screencapture by Nadjanator

Click here to consider supporting future updates to Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following for how it optimizes and enhances the virtual world's graphics, the brainchild of NiranV, a passionate (if cranky) advocate for making SL and user-made content beautiful as it deserves to be. (And don't worry about the Adult content warning that pops up when you click, it's an odd Patreon quirk as there's nothing really NSFW on his page.) 

Speaking for myself, NiranV is one of the most talented SLers to support the community, volunteering skills to Black Dragon that could easily get him a high-paying graphics programming job. People like him need and deserve the SL community's support, so they in turn can keep on supporting the SL community. So click here to become a patron to his Patreon. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the pics in this post, and on this Flickr group devoted to untouched Black Dragon images.

Speaking for himself and his viewer, here's what SLers can expect to get from using Black Dragon:

How to Use the VR Version Of Second Life For Firestorm & Steam VR

Austin Tate has a very useful, in-depth tutorial for installing and running Peter Kappler's VR version of the Firestorm viewer for Second Life (which I blogged earlier this year), with bonus points for a how-to on installing an XBox One/360 controller to run with the Oculus Rift installation.

While Second Life isn't social VR per se, it remains the largest, content rich social virtual world space with (relatively) high end graphics that can be explored in a VR rig.

As you might expect, Austin tells me/warns me that graphics performance does take a hit in virtual reality:

Lumiya Update: Android App for SL Unpublished from Google Play Due to Sudden Terms of Service Changes, Dev Team Now Working to Republish

Important update for Android users and owners of Lumiya, the popular SL viewer for Android devices, which was recently removed for unknown reasons from Google Play -- as pointed out by reader/Lumiya user Mondy:

According to the notice sent through the Lumiya in-world group, the reason for the delisting on Google play was because of a change in SMS policy from Google. Lumiya has a backup feature for chat so if it uses SMS to send those then that's probably what it refers to. I know a lot of popular apps that use SMS also got hit recently for the same kind of thing and without being updated in time apps get removed automatically. According to the notice they're working on getting re-published as soon as they can.

Screengrab of that group message update above. And indeed, Google did announce some policy changes to Android apps last month related to apps and the use of SMS.

And as Lumiya's group manager says, until Lumiya is restored to Google Play, the recommended download channel for Lumiya is from the SlideMe Android market.

Lumiya, Popular SL Viewer Recently Removed from Google Play, Still Available on SlideME Android Marketplace

While Lumiya, the popular SL viewer for Android devices, was recently removed for unknown reasons from Google Play, it's still currently available on SlideME, a curated market for Android apps. I'm not too familiar with SlideME but it's recommended by some Android news outlets as a popular alternative to Google Play. More key, Lumiya creator Alina Lyvette herself recommends SlideME as a Google Play alternative, especially for people who to want to purchase a copy from her using PayPal. Some SLers have pointed to alternate sources for Lumiya which might be unauthorized/ripped copies, and of course, it's far better that Alina get the sales: Go here to buy it on SlideME.

Lumiya, Popular Android Viewer for Second Life, Gone from Google Play -- But Still Works (For Now)

Update, May 6: Lumiya still seems to be available on SlideME Android Marketplace

Frustrating and possibly bad news: Lumiya, the popular SL viewer for Android devices -- over 100,000 copies have been bought at $2.99 each -- is no longer in Google Play. This about a year after word that Lumiya, created by SLer Alina Lyvette, was removed from the official Third Party Viewer Directory.

The good news is it still works: I just logged into Second Life with my Samsung tablet, and the SL replica of Notre Dame Cathedral faithfully started to display. (And impressively well, for an Android client!)

I've reached out to both Linden Lab and Alina for clarity, and hope to update this story soon. I haven't received any message from Alina since 2014, when we talked about her real life as an LGBTQ person in Putin's oppressive Russia. But no reason as yet to assume anything -- it may just be a simple technical issue.

Does This Open Source VR Viewer for Second Life Make the Virtual World Look Better Than VRChat?

There's a new update to Firestorm VR, a Second Life viewer for virtual reality headsets, from developer Peter Kappler (links available here on his YouTube page). It includes some fixes and improvements to the open source project from since I first blogged about it last month; specifically new mouse and keyboard controls (as you'll see in the video above) plus better performance: "Stereo should look smoother now", Peter tells me.

And while Second Life is over 15 years old, he believes the VR experience his viewer offers is better than what you'd get in leading social VR platforms:

"Honestly if you go to other VR worlds you will find out that the worlds and avatars are not so complicated," as he puts it to me. "I bet if you build a sim properly and use proper avatars you can make SL look like VRChat -- even better. I saw some avatars that were looking pretty realistic in Second Life which I've never seen in VRChat."

How accurate that is, I leave up to brave early adopters who want to give Firestorm VR a try -- here's some instruction tips and advice from Peter: