Monday, January 23, 2012

SecondLife : The Zen Viewer : First Looks

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Well this one is new to me, the first I had even noticed of it's availability was this morning. It is brought to you by SL resident Zena Juran. So far there is no dedicated web page, but there is one listing all of its features and download location on the SecondLife Wiki, and the list is very extensive and impressive.

     The initial login screen, is pretty standard, very close to the official LL V3 with some extra goodies too.

























        Definitely nothing confusing here, and performance was solid.










 

     As is typical with most V3 based offshoots you will not be able to read older V1.x log files, or selectively mute individual group chats.
 










    There are some preset WinLight settings available.











 
    I had some trouble trying to access my profile, more than likely a problem on LL's end, because it seemed to be working earlier in the day when I first downloaded Zen.




























    A couple of things really stood out, at least for me. A nice small, compact, re-sizable camera control and easy to use draw distance.

    In my opinion, if you are using the Stock LL V3 and happy with its performance, ease of use and not overly complicated myriad of setting's available on some of the other TPV's  out there. And you want something that is better, I will highly recommend this viewer. It is an excellent choice for the casual user.

Here is the Download link.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Zen

JayR Cela :_)

3 comments:

Ace Albion said...

I really like it so far. One thing I found, and I don't know if this is a V3 feature, a setting somewhere or a bug, is when I alt-click on something that's moving, the camera doesn't move with it (I was sat on a sled with friends and wanted to change the view, but couldn't). Other than that it seems pretty fast and stable with the features I like (area search and tex refresh).

JayR Cela said...

Hi there Ace

I have not experienced that particular problem. I do know that Zena has pushed out 4 updates since this post. I have not had a chance to meet her Avatar to Avatar yet. Just an AFK message she left me the other day. Her message indicates that she is very nice and devoted to this project, so you might want to leave a message with her.

Zena Juran

I'm not positive about this but I believe she is basing her builds on the SnowStorm source code, and that is a constant moving target.

I think it is a setting somewhere, but I'm not positive.

I just tried a test for myself on a wind surf board and it seems to be working ok for me.

*bigg huggs*

JayR :_)

Ace Albion said...

I will have to RTFM maybe :D I really like this viewer, though.