[Opensim-users] PC vs Mac OS Viewer Issue (with a Solution)

Fri Apr 5 22:57:27 UTC 2013

I believe the viewers add some randomness to the blending functions used to
blend the terrain textures; therefore its highly unlikely that 2 viewers
will see the same results regardless of the underlying OS or platform. In
fact you will likely see different results with the same viewer on the same
machine across different login sessions.

All of the blending occurs on the viewer and there is no way for the server
to enforce any particular interpretation of the terrain settings by any
viewer. If you find that having a grass texture in the 3rd box produces a
more appealing result when viewed with your setup, bear in mind that others
will likely see it quite differently. This is really a deficiency in the
design of the basic terrain system. If you want something more consistent
or better in some other way, you might consider using a mesh (or multiple
meshes) for your terrain.

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Kay McLennan <mclennan.kay at gmail.com> wrote:

> Justin, et al,
>
> I duplicated the problem (re:  missing/unattractive low elevation ground
> textures) on the Firestorm, Singularity, and Imprudence OS viewers (on my
> private OSgrid grid and in MOSES).  Now, I just duplicated the problem in
> Linden Lab's grid using the Firestorm viewer and the latest SL Mac viewer.
> Note:  While I do not have estate privileges on any parcels of land in SL,
> I found several islands that duplicated both the problem and the solution.
> More specifically, the island in SL simply called "Teaching" does not have
> any terrain texture in terrain texture box 3 (and accordingly, using a Mac
> viewer on a Mac Air laptop, there was no texture visible on the ground).
> In contrast, the three NMC islands I visited all have grass textures in
> terrain texture box 3 and the island terrain appears textured (using a Mac
> viewer on a Mac Air laptop).
>
> Note:  I do not think there is a problem with the viewers, the viewer
> settings, or the information being sent to either a Windows or a Mac
> viewer.  Rather, I think the problem is the default terrain texture
> settings in the OpenSim distribution (with the preferable scheme in need of
> a grass texture in terrain texture box 3).  That is, individuals using a
> Windows system to develop OpenSim (and even in SL) do not realize how their
> default terrain textures look to Mac users (at least this has been the case
> with me from 2008 - till recently!).
>
> Finally, for a visual, the image at --
> https://sites.google.com/site/scs3dlearning/upcoming-seminars/Default%20vs%20Fixed%20Texture%20Scheme.jpg?attredirects=0-- has the default OpenSim terrain texture scheme on the left hand side of
> the image and a preferred (grass in texture box 3) terrain texture box on
> the right hand side of the image.
>
> Best,
> Kay
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Justin Clark-Casey <
> jjustincc at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm quite surprised to hear this as I would be pretty sure that we're
>> sending exactly the same information to both PC and Mac.  Have you seen
>> this on any other viewer (though I know this might be difficult with the
>> lower number of viewers supporting Mac OSX)?  Do you see the same issue on
>> Linden Lab's grid with the same viewer?
>>
>>
>> On 04/04/13 19:29, Kay McLennan wrote:
>>
>>> [I cannot answer the question concerning "which mesh-enabled OS viewer
>>> is the most lightweight."  Note:  I like the
>>> Firestorm viewer and the Kokua viewer (and especially the shadows in the
>>> Kokua viewer).]  However, I just discovered
>>> (and solved) a viewer issue that everyone wishing to accommodate both PC
>>> virtual world users and Mac virtual world users
>>> needs to know about.
>>>
>>> I just installed a Firestorm mesh-enabled OS viewer on a Mac Air laptop.
>>>  [Note:  I previously exclusively used PC-based
>>> viewers to access and build in OpenSim.]  In turn, when first accessing
>>> my own private grid I noticed the ground
>>> textures were only a [blinding] mix of the mountain and rock terrain
>>> textures (that are in the default terrain texture
>>> boxes 3 and 4 in the Terrain Tab in the Region/Estate drop down menu).
>>>  In turn, any student (and in particular, new
>>> students) that first sees such a barren virtual world landscape is
>>> likely to have a less than enthusiastic reaction to
>>> virtual world learning.
>>>
>>> To make a somewhat long "trial and error" story short, the easiest
>>> solution to the above problem is to make sure to
>>> change the default terrain texture settings for all OpenSim islands.  In
>>> particular, for the sake of Mac users, if you
>>> want grass to show up on the ground level (around 24 meters) there has
>>> to be some green grass in terrain texture box 3.
>>>
>>> Has anyone else encountered and/or solved the problem of dissimilar
>>> ground textures when moving from a PC-based viewer
>>> to a Mac-based viewer?
>>>
>>> Also, any tips for where to get the best 1024 x 1024 ground textures?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Kay
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ______________________________**_________________
>>> Opensim-users mailing list
>>> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
>>> https://lists.berlios.de/**mailman/listinfo/opensim-users<https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
>> OSVW Consulting
>> http://justincc.org
>> http://twitter.com/justincc
>> ______________________________**_________________
>> Opensim-users mailing list
>> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
>> https://lists.berlios.de/**mailman/listinfo/opensim-users<https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users>
>>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-users mailing list
> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-users/attachments/20130405/3f5329cd/attachment.html>