Kirstens Viewer - SL Shadows for the Masses (with good enough PCs)
September 1, 2008 8:50 pmWhen news on the ‘Shadow Draft’ of the Second Life Client first came out, I was thrilled beyond normal Vint-levels. But… it did not work for me. Regardless what I tried - amongst others, buying a new laptop ;) - I could not get it to work. Now, Kirstenlee Cinquetti has a Shadowdraft available of the ‘Kirstens Viewer’ (of which I never heard before today, I feel so ashamed!) - which works ‘perfectly’ for me (and a lot of others)! Behold, this lovely shot taken at Carnival of Doom (TP):
How to get Shadows yourself?
First huge question is which graphics card you have. You should be OK with one of the following: NVIDIA 8800 and 9000 series and the ATI HD cards 3800 & 4800’s. If you have another one, well, believe me, the shadows are worth giving a try regardless of your chance at success!
All the necessary files & info you can find on Miss Cinquetti’s blog, but it’s spread over a few blogposts, so I’ll spare you the trouble of searching for it:
- Download (Kirstens SD2-R5.exe) and install the Kirstins Viewer Shadowdraft 2 REV 5.
- Preferably install it somewhere far away from the normal SL clients, so avoid confusing situations. With me they are on another disk than the usual c:/.
- Boot the client, set your graphics settings to max.
- Press ctrl+alt+d to enabled the ‘Advanced’ menu.
- In the ‘Advanced’ menu go to ‘Debug Settings’.
- Find ‘RenderDeffered’ and make sure it is set to ‘FALSE’.
- Find ‘RenderUseFBO’ and set that one to ‘TRUE’.
- Go back to ‘RenderDeffered’ and set that to ‘TRUE’ also.
As Kirsten puts it very well you have now three possible outcomes:
- No Change
- Lotsa Cool shadows and eyecandy
- Spectacular Crash !
Option 2 is for the lucky ones, and option 3 we might be able to fix. That is, at least, if you run into the same problem as I did:
NVIDIA GeForce 9650M-GS & Hardware Antialiasing
Something I normally ALWAYS have activated can be found under the Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Settings in your menu. It says ‘Hardware Antialiasing’ and - although normally obliged for the sake & quality of the snapshots - you want this disabled now, as it makes your newly acquired shadow viewer crash! So reboot the client, turn ‘Hardware Anti-aliasing’ OFF and go through steps 4 to 8 of ‘How to get Shadows yourself?’ again. I hope this works for you! (And else, well, at least we gave it a try! ;))
Some interesting and less interesting notes on Second Life shadow throwing capacities
- The atmosphere seems to be overly bright in this client. Go into ‘world’ > ‘environment settings’ > ‘environment editor’ > ‘advanced sky’ > ‘lightning’ tab and lower the ‘Scene Gamma’. Better, no?
- This might sound obviously, but err… you make your shadows longer by lowering your sun and moving your sun moves the direction of your shadows! ;)
- This might sound obviously, but err… you get harsher shadows by lowering the amount of ‘ambient light’ and upping the amount of ’sun/moon color’.
- Your avatar limbs even throw shadows on each other! So you can have the shadow of your arm on your leg.
- The farther away your camera focus (alt+click) is from an object, the less harsh/strong it’s shadow is. If you move away to far, the shadow totally disappears.
- Alpha textures drop a shadow. So do prim trees. So you get a really life like leaves shadow on the ground.
- Worn attachments cast a shadow on your avie. So we now have more or less realistic shading created by our hair!!
- Shadows on sculpties are funny.
- Shadows do not work on water. They merely stop reflection from happening.
- Shadows do not work on full bright floor.
- … I have so much shadow-exploring still to do!!!! :D
And the whole of this post shortly summarized? WOOT! Shadows!
The Kirstins Client ‘Home Blog’: KirstenLeeCinquetti.Blogspot.com.
Hat tip for this fine discovery: Rob Dantion via Kean Kelly (who was as nice to IM me this juicy shadow goodness!)
51 Responses to “Kirstens Viewer - SL Shadows for the Masses (with good enough PCs)”
[…] Kirstens Viewer - SL Shadows for the Masses […]
Ooooh, I think I’ll try this viewer at the weekend. I’ve got an 8800GTX in my monstah PC… Maybe I’ll get fewer crashes with the viewer too?
Shadows are triumphant. They make me want to see all of SL over again. My framerate goes way down, but that just makes me want to buy a better graphix card so I can see more shadows!
[…] Kirstens Viewer - SL Shadows for the Masses (with good enough PCs) | VintFalken.com - Exporting an SL photographer’s Second Life […]
Is there a way to get this to work on an ATI card?
Lawrence, works on some ATI cards, just as it works on some NVIDIA cards. ;) Give it a try?
I’ve got a 3870 and when I set ‘Render Deffered’ true everything but prims dissapear and they turn all raindow colors.
I have an 8800M GTS, and shadows do not work for me.
RenderDefered just flips back to FALSE every time I try to set it to true.
have seen significant differences, but for some reasons kristens viewer runs alot slower then the other, havent figured out why. Any ideas? and shadows are great but If i cant move around they are hard to use.
Christopher, probably because computing all those shadows one by one, and re-computing them over with every single movement you make, asks a lot of your PC. That’s probably also on of the reason why it’s still ‘under development’. ;)
I’m an artist and a builder in SL. That’s what I do there, and I have to say this is a must. Downloaded the viewer and all went fine for me. I’m planning to use this client for photographs. Thanks!
Thanks a lot the advice on setting it up. I’m taking the plunge :)
Wahh, it doesn’t work on mine :(
I got the rainbowness to stop, but when I click ‘Render Defered’ there aren’t any shadows and everything gets dark and Atmospheric shading turns off.
Well, it doesn’t work on mine. I’ve got an ATI Radeon HD 2600. I can run on max graphics at 1920×1200 resolution, but I guess this version can’t be rendered by my hardware. I see no changes.
[…] Vint Falken: Shadows in your Second Life Snapshots […]
Even without shadows, the ordinaire Kirsten S16 viwere is faster, more stable and ooooo a lot bloody faster. Did I say that.
For those of us too poor to buy the latest kit or still paying off last years olde kit - its worth a go.
It does not affect the SL officiale viewer in any way.
No setup to do, it reads the data from the server.
I’ve been using it 2 weeks to manipulate the cameras faster and it really, really, no REALLY is faster and very good.
Try it.
Trust me on this
Prof. Archie von Lukas
the shadows don’t appear to work on Nvidia 8600GT..
Where can i get the S16 viewer… i have not been able to find it..
the link on the page is for source files … i dont know what to do with them
Harry, Kirsten stopped development of these viewers, google NWN for more info.
Damn
she’s given up the ghost
and I still find it the fastest most stable viewer I’ve used yet.
Is there a compatible / similar project going on elsewhere?
any viewer for OSX somewhere ?
Can someone please, please send me the .exe file? It’s not hosted on the web site any more ;_;
Azareth . Kohime [AT] gmail.com
Hey guys.. I’m currently using this viewer with a 9800GT and I gotta say it is beautiful.. Only problems I have is the AA (Yes, I know what it says above).. I want to be able to use them. A friend has been using the viewer for awhile now and is able to enable AA because of some Debug settings but she doesn’t remember what they are. Anyone have any ideas or fixes for the AA problem? Also noticed that when I turn shadows on my eyes disappear ( They are alpha textures; using a fur av ), any fix for that too? Other than those problems, and not being able to use snapshot, this is just amazing. It is sad to see Kirsten go.
I got it working fine and made a few videos posted here
http://www.youtube.com/pat12345tee and here
http://www.youtube.com/user/HDSecondLifeCom
i have some bug but nothin so important the viewer is working
really fine less lag faster and the colors and the rendering is , wow, really better now.
the shadows make me instable and slower but they work fine if i need just to take a pic.
i dont very interested about the future, i need the old kirtesn viewer made on the 1.18 or 1.19 version of sl viewer. i need this just for login and stay alive inworld. If anybody knows how i could get this old viewers please repla to me. thanks
Elin, Kirsten released S17, a new version of the shadowdraft recently. I haven’t tested it, so can’t tell you it’s any good, but won’t that suffice?
http://kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com/
As for other viewers, did you try the Imprudence one already?
Vint
Thank you so much for this wonderful tool Kirstenlee Cinquetti. I just wished I had something i could give you in return I’m a real life hobo in many ways but if you ever need a video made with your viewer please call on me.
oh ty Vint Falken :)
i will try those viewers, i dint know about the imprudence viewer, i hope it works
I didn’t see a great deal of shadows but the light was certainly different and better I think. More true it seemed. But it lagged my machine big time and mine is grunty.
Stormy, you need to ‘fiddle’ with your environment/windlight settings a bit. Try:
* move the time of day closer to sunset or sunset (as in real life, shadows will become more harsh)
* less ‘ambient light’ (diffuse) and more ’sun light’ (direct, casts shadows)
Thanks Vint, I will try that. Also, I dl’ed and installed S17-1 but was there anything else I had to install?
Stormy, maybe these steps are still needed:
1. Download (Kirstens SD2-R5.exe) and install the Kirstins Viewer Shadowdraft 2 REV 5.
2. Preferably install it somewhere far away from the normal SL clients, so avoid confusing situations. With me they are on another disk than the usual c:/.
3. Boot the client, set your graphics settings to max.
4. Press ctrl+alt+d to enabled the ‘Advanced’ menu.
5. In the ‘Advanced’ menu go to ‘Debug Settings’.
6. Find ‘RenderDeffered’ and make sure it is set to ‘FALSE’.
7. Find ‘RenderUseFBO’ and set that one to ‘TRUE’.
8. Go back to ‘RenderDeffered’ and set that to ‘TRUE’ also.
(as I said, didn’t have the time to test it myself yet)
ok, played and played with the advanced sky settings (Fine Day is beautiful!) but still no shadows. I must need to install something else.
There is no SD2-R5.exe
Aha, no of course, you want to replace that by the newer viewer:
Kirstens S17-1 Shadowviewer.exe
http://armyof4.com/Kirstenlee/Public%20Viewers/Kirstens%20S17-1%20ShadowViewer.exe
;)
I did that. I said it in my first 2nd post.
And followed all the steps? Then please report to Miss Kirsten with your information from the viewer? (graphics card, drivers version, etc, … ). Maybe she has a hunch ‘why’? (or the steps changed)
[…] on this viewer Thank you very muchthe work is first class. Here is an easy to install info by Vintfalken Now I am going to see if I can get this to work on Troppo Grid and […]
[…] If you’re interested in trying this, I got all of my info from here. […]
I have turned everything on with 285GTX including Anistsotropicm antialiasing. It work with 185.85 nvidia XP driver. But the shadow of avatar is not really complete. it only has head, feet and the outline of middle.
[…] I’ve been playing around with Shadow Viewer (Kirstens Viewer version, read more about it here!) It’s AMAZING. <3 Of course, it can be very glitchy and buggy, and for many it simply […]
I tried installing the s16(182) … asks for a serial number. where can i get one and how
No idea, Hicoota. The SL viewer is opensource, it’s not legal to lock it down, so are you sure you downloaded the right program?
I downloaded the private viewer
Kirstens-S16 (182).exe 07-Apr-2009 05:21 30.1M
which is there at the site one gets to when one clicks at the download in the text at the top
http://armyof4.com/Kirstenlee/Public%20Viewers/Kirstens%20S17-1%20ShadowViewer.exe is the most recent one, Hicoota. Shadow Viewer S17-1
YAAAY Vint thank you for all the info and preparing it cooking it and make it ready to consume :))) you ROCK I’ll try it soon first my comp needs to be repaired then after i can break it again :P
Great idea! Now the photos to my blog will be more
realistic, thanks to you. Congratulations on your effort,
Perfect !!!!!
Fran
[…] after reading the articles about shadows in Second Life® in Massively, by Vint Falken, in New World Notes (by Hamlet Au) and by Gwyneth Llewelyn I was really curious and wanted to […]
[…] after reading the articles about shadows in Second Life® in Massively, by Vint Falken, in New World Notes (by Hamlet Au) and by Gwyneth Llewelyn I was really curious and wanted to […]
Care to comment?